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whypolar · 1 year

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Gundam Unicorn OVA 3: The Ghost of Laplace

Some of the most stunning visuals from these OVAs yet. What a beautiful piece of animation.

Choosing which screenshots to use for this post hurt me. If I had my way, I would include multiple shots of every sequence where something explodes. Many, many things explode.

I'm glad I don't have problems with flashing lights. The lasers in this one get pretty intense.

This post is very long. There's a lot of novel stuff I want to talk about. Let's get into it!

(Previous posts: Day of the Unicorn, The Second Coming of Char)

I won't lie, they got further into the plot than I thought they were going to. I was expecting more time in Palau and then Riddhe and Mineva arriving and doing stuff on Earth, with the confrontation in the ruins of Laplace being saved for the next one. If I'd paid attention to the title I could have realized they were going to go to the coordinates, but I obviously did not. It caught me pretty off guard!

I definitely feel like this one benefits from multiple watches. They all do, for sure, but this one had a lot of little moments that were much stronger the second time through. A lot happens very quickly! Taking the time to pay attention is rewarding, especially in terms of emotional stakes. It was easy on a first watch to just get caught up in the spectacle and not fully process everything that's happening-- and that's for me, who already knew the background context and plot beats going in.

The Obligatory Music Section

Some of these tracks were probably also in the last two, but I didn't link them so it doesn't count. Here are the standouts I'm highlighting this time:

Bring on a War -- I love the strings on this track. Guitar? The instrumentation for this entire soundtrack is so fun and complex. The intense drums! The woodwinds! The weird ghostly vocals! That repeated noise that sounds like a gunshot and breaking glass! So good.

Capture -- Equal parts jaunty and menacing. I like the bells at the start.

Merry-go-round -- The credits song. Pop music with lyrics about the inescapable repetition of history: it's a proud Gundam movie tradition.

Environments

You guys remember places?

We're spending time in and around a large colony again, so the sweeping establishing shots are back. The space port is so beautiful, and so alien in how you're expected to traverse it.

I definitely will be looking up the staff once I'm done watching these. For many reasons, really, but I'm very curious about who was doing the environmental art and design.

And while we're talking about environments--

Operation Billiard

The most important reveal: the glowing orb pillars in the purple palm tree lounge are low-gravity hologram pool tables.

It turns out that the vaporwave room was a billiards hall this whole time! I assume this is a nod to how the attack plan on Palau was named "Operation Billiard" in the novels.

We get a quick explanation of the plan in the OVA (separate the asteroids that make up Palau, seal the military port, rescue Banagher during the confusion) but they don't bother to explain the mechanics in detail. Why would they need to? When you see a bunch of explosions and a giant fuckoff laser, it is immediately obvious why that might be a problem for Neo Zeon.

Fuck that one Eye-Zack in particular

If you're curious about why it's "Operation Billiard": Palau is made up of four asteroids. They planned to use the force of the Mega Particle Cannon to knock them all into each other. This would obstruct the exits for the military port in the centre of the asteroid cluster, trapping the Zeon forces inside.

The manoeuvre worked as intended, but Frontal knew the attack was coming, so he was able to move all his forces off Palau ahead of time.

(A small number of other random Zeon-aligned soldiers were deliberately left out of the loop to act as bait, because the Sleeves didn't care about them. The way the guys that try to escape through the cracks get picked off one by one is kind of horrific. They might as well be marching single file into a mech-destroying meat grinder.)

I do think the attack on Palau is more harrowing in the novel. In terms of the combat, I'm not sure if that could be avoided. It feels inherently easier for me to remember that every mobile suit is a person while reading textual description than when there's a beautiful laser light show going off before my eyes.

That said, in some places the framing is just different:

I really love this scene, for the record.

In the novel, Nashiri is a perspective character during the battle. We are reading from his viewpoint inside the cockpit with his crew while they pick off Zeon soldiers one by one-- and then the Sinanju swoops into view, and they immediately know the plan is compromised and that they're going to die. They are burned and vaporized to dust, and then we switch to Angelo's perspective.

What I find memorable about the novel scene is the loss of life: how methodically they had been killing, and how quickly the Sinanju does the same to them. How they saw it coming but could do nothing. How living, breathing human beings could be reduced to literally nothing in an instant.

The OVA positions the camera outside, with the Sinanju. We see Frontal slowly and deliberately carving out the Loto's entire chest to make sure he got all of them. We do not see or hear any of the Loto's pilots. We see inside Frontal's cockpit, for a shot of him looking cooly down at his handiwork before moving on. What I find memorable about this scene is that Frontal is scary.

(Imagine me here getting stabbed with a beam weapon, saying "Wow! Cool Antagonist!")

It's not like death isn't thematically important in the OVA-- they absolutely remind you with dialogue that every mobile suit blowing up is a person dying. We see a shot of this same Loto and its partner after the battle as burned out wrecks, and it's clear Daguza and the other ECOAS guys are thinking about their dead comrades. Riddhe and Banagher both deliberately attempt to spare enemy pilots. The level of destruction is immense! The robots are simply too cool. It can't be helped.

This is one of the benefits of multiple watches. When you've already seen the cool robots once before, you can focus in more closely on what they're doing, and what that means.

There's another reason the battle loses some emotional charge: focus is drawn away from noncombatants almost entirely. We see very little of the regular people who live on Palau.

For all Riddhe assures Mineva that they have no intention of attacking the areas where civilians live, it is unavoidable that slamming the asteroids they live on together will have consequences.

The novel describes intense earthquakes. Two residential blocks collapse. Residents are rolling and tumbling around. Windows of the houses that stay standing shatter. You get a real sense of fear on the civilian level.

The OVA gives us a quick scene with Tikva. There's some dust and some shaking, but he stays standing easily enough. We don't see anything collapse on screen. We hear people screaming in confusion and terror, but none of them are visible. Likewise, the streets are totally empty of people and identical to their first appearance when Banagher is making his way to the space port. Civilians are basically not relevant.

The novel spends a lot more time on Palau even before the attack. We spend time with Gilboa's family. Banagher genuinely befriends these people! He plays with Gilboa's kids and fixes a machine they use to make a living. It's a bit sad to lose all that, but I get it.

There's also scene in the novel where a truck driver in one of the connecting tunnels gets blown back fifty feet by the force of ECOAS' bombs going off, slams into a wall, and passes out. He wakes up when he's discovered several hours later, after the attack is over. It's more funny than anything, because he's just like, fine, lmao. I was so sure he was done. Fifty feet just intuitively sounds like too much to be survivable, until you remember there's no gravity.

Anyway, you wanna know something that was appropriately menacing during the Palau attack? The Unicorn. The Unicorn was perfect.

The joy of a hunter.

Marida vs. Banagher

Oh... this sequence is so visually striking.

I was shocked by how quickly it all happened. This isn't a criticism. I guess I was expecting it to linger more, like the scenes with Amuro and Lalah in '79. The amount of concrete "information" conveyed here is so much more than that, and yet it covers it all in less than two minutes. You certainly get a sense for how instantaneously Marida and Banagher are communicating, and how overwhelming it must be for both of them.

I will likely revisit Marida's backstory in future posts, in relation to other scenes that happen later. For now, I'll just say I was surprised and impressed.

I'm admittedly very curious how this scene reads for people who don't already know the backstory going in. Hell, how does it read for people who aren't familiar with Gundam ZZ?

(I put on the dub for my second watch. This is the first time I heard how "Ple" is pronounced in English. Fucked up.)

I wish I'd taken notes on specifics, but I think they shifted some dialogue around between combat, the Newtype link, and the scene in the hospital room. It's not really important, but I think it's interesting how scenes with similar dialogue or themes can be folded into each other in an adaptation.

Some stuff cut from the hospital scene:

There's a CT scan of Banagher on the wall in novel. "You checked whether I was a Cyber-Newtype too, didn't you?" When I read the English translation, I thought they dodged telling the audience what the result of the test actually was. I thought that was a really interesting choice. Unfortunately, I don't think it's actually the case, having checked the Japanese. I can't be 100% sure, but I think the meaning of the line is that as far as the doctor could tell with the equipment they had available, he detected no evidence of Banagher being a Cyber-Newtype. 😔

When Banagher and the doctor discuss Newtype theory, they cut a line where the doctor suggests that a world where everyone knows what everyone else is thinking without obfuscation or deception might not be the magic bullet to end war, and could even be more violent. He's also a little more direct in the novel about implying that the emergence of Newtypes could create a divide between them and "Oldtypes."

The doctor points out that Newtypes are theorized to evolve in space, and how this would be a problem for Earth-Space relations. Banagher says that they should just make everyone evolve all at once. The Japanese line seems a bit vague, but the English translation interprets this as him suggesting they pull a Char / Mafty and send everyone into space. I think that's a fun way to take it, particularly because Banagher thinks it's a childish idea even as he says it. It's cute to me.

Full Frontal

In the novel, we see Frontal arranging his battle plan before the attack begins-- we see that he knows the attack coming, we see him move his troops off Palau, and we see him give orders to leave the Unicorn where Banagher will find it. In the OVA, we learn most of this in retrospect. I don't think the framing changes much, except insofar as it means less screen time for him and Angelo.

The big scene we lose is the one where they speak to one of their major sponsors in Neo Zeon, the guy who owns Palau. He tries to goad Frontal into officially admitting to being Char and taking off the mask, implicitly threatening to rescind his support if he doesn't. Frontal responds to this with "That's okay. I actually came by today to tell you we're leaving! How convenient. Bye."

Frontal speaks very differently to this guy than he did to Banagher, even beyond refusing to remove his mask. It's a fascinating contrast, and I like it a lot. Frontal is very good at being threateningly passive-aggressive in multiple registers.

A good and telling bit of dialogue from Frontal that we lose by cutting this scene: "Char Aznable is a man who lost."

I still don't understand what they're doing with Riddhe, and I'm getting increasingly concerned about it.

I cannot believe how many Riddhe opinions I apparently have had this whole time, just waiting to be revealed.

OVA Riddhe does not feel like much of anything to me so far, which is bizarre when his novel counterpart has so much going on. His blandness is even more noticeable when he's spending so much time with Mineva, who is a very strong-willed character with defined beliefs.

I would say his characterization has been made subordinate to hers, except she doesn't even gain anything from it? Cutting his screen time also cuts hers as well. He's the character that she's interacting with most for this entire section of the story, so making him less interesting just means she has a less interesting conversation partner!

Riddhe is a major character, and there are events later that hinge on the audience giving a shit about him. He needs to have substance, because the story is going to treat him like he has it. If he doesn't have it, it will fall flat.

Here are the key points I want to go over:

Novel Riddhe's values and beliefs are made very clear, while OVA Riddhe feels more ambiguous and flimsy.

Novel Riddhe's relationship to his family is far more complicated and compelling than anything we've been told about OVA Riddhe so far.

Novel Riddhe is shown to have strong emotional ties to the crew of the Nahel Argama.

Novel Riddhe has many clearly established reasons not to do what he does-- personally, professionally, and legally-- and chooses to do it anyway.

This scene was funnier in the novel, because it tells you they have a telephone for each member of the family, but they're all in the same room where they get answered by the same butler.

Novel Riddhe is thoroughly established as a person with opinions and a strong moral compass. He does more to help others, at greater difficulty than anything OVA Riddhe has been faced with thus far, and the negative consequences he knowingly takes on are made more explicit.

In the novel, there's a whole extra step before taking Mineva to earth. Mineva has been moved off the Nahel Argama to another ship, the Alaska, which was going to bring her to a be held at a base on the moon. Getting her out of there is a lot more convoluted than knocking out a single guard and then sneaking down some hallways when no one is looking.

Riddhe sets off a bunch of smoke canisters all over the ship to cause confusion, knocks out some guys, flees the Alaska in a shuttle, shakes the mobile suits tailing them by flying through a debris field, lies about his reason for returning so they let him back on the Argama, and ultimately sneaks Mineva back onto the ship and into his mobile suit. Since the battle has started at this point, it's impossible for the Argama to contact the Alaska or vice-versa.

It makes sense to cut this for time. It's an extraneous trip just to return to the status quo of them needing to sneak off the Argama again anyway. There are other ways to show Riddhe's determination without giving him a dramatic heroic sequence.

But here's the problem with removing it: Riddhe doesn't just rescue Mineva. Takuya and Micott are also on the Alaska. It is strongly implied that they're going to be disappeared.

(There are people from the Intelligence Department on the 'Alaska', so leave the prisoner to them. Don't ask any further.) "Then what about the civilians? They..." (Will be treated as those who violated confidentiality and dealt with as appropriate. You have no need to be involved with them.)

That's significant! Mineva is a person with obvious political importance, and Riddhe became emotionally attached to her before he even knew that. It is entirely possible to interpret rescuing Mineva through a lens of selfish motivations, especially in an adaptation where we aren't privy to his inner thoughts.

Riddhe has no special attachment to Takuya and Micott. He saves them because he has an obligation to do so, because leaving them behind would be wrong.

Are you wondering why the Alaska came to pick them up in the first place? It happened because Riddhe contacted his father at the request of Captain Otto, even though he really didn't want to, in the hopes that he could prevent more deaths by requesting additional support for the Argama.

But Riddhe's father didn't send the support Riddhe requested-- he sent a ship to pick up Riddhe and the prisoners. Why send military support when he can just remove his son from the battlefield that he never wanted him to be on anyway, right? He doesn't even respond himself, some random military guy does it for him.

... this admiral might not have even thought of him as a person. He was just looking at the shadow behind his back-- the authority of Senator Ronan Marcenas. Riddhe felt the emptiness of talking to a wall as he yelled, "WHY ONLY ME...!"

To me, novel Riddhe's frustration with his family is the single most important character trait he has. It informs every single one of his decisions. And so far, in the anime, it has not come up even once.

Riddhe is not just a bit distant from his family. He is repeatedly described as having run away from home. We are told he has not spoken to his father or his sister in some time. He literally refers to his 'family' in scare quotes while thinking about them.

Riddhe too felt repulsed by the fact he had to rely on the 'family' that he had been hiding from at this point, but there was no other way.

[...]

There’s no other choice. Riddhe returned back to his room and ended up spending 2 hours writing a mail to his father. He had never sent a phone call for the past few years, let alone a message. His body did not have a function to communicate with his father, and he felt a chill when he started off with ‘Dear Father’.

[...]

"Since I entered the army with the family's objection, I never intended to come back, but just this once, I have to do this."

The car ride with his father when they first meet and head back to the house is incredibly miserable. They casually drop that Riddhe's mom is in a nursing home, and then they sit in total silence.

Riddhe was looking in front silently, not looking at the greenery passing by outside the window. He was about as silent as the time when he piloted the “Delta Plus” into the atmosphere—no, he might be a lot more tense here. Sitting diagonally in front of him was Ronan, who had his mouth shut, not intending to look away from the notebook terminal. As for what they actually talked about on the limousine, there were only two lines, “Mom?” “She’s in a Nursing Home in Switzerland.” What was left was the heavy and unbearable silence passing between them.

Eventually, Riddhe starts speaking to Mineva while she's looking at the scenery, very obviously as a way of needling his dad. It's an insanely loaded conversation. He basically says "hey Mineva, have you ever read Gone with the Wind? Did you know it takes place here, in Georgia? Just thinking about wealthy white farmers enriching themselves by exploiting Black slaves as we drive to my rich politician dad's house, for no reason."

The dig is not subtle. His dad sarcastically responds to it by pointing out the comparison, as if pretending he isn't extremely aware that's why Riddhe brought it up in the first place, and then they go back to totally ignoring each other.

This is something I think is important: in the novel, Ricardo Marcenas-- Riddhe's great-grandfather and first Prime Minister of the Earth Federation-- is not white. He is stated to be mixed race both during his political speech, when he talks about his heritage, and later when Mineva sees his portrait.

It is an unbelievably pointed choice to have Riddhe and his father be white-passing and from the southern US while the dead great-grandfather with lofty ideals who was implicitly assassinated by his own government was visibly (and proudly) multiracial.

Between the family's politics and Riddhe's sister being in an arranged marriage for political and business reasons, you can guess that this is more than just a coincidence of genetics. Ricardo's descendants wanted to hold onto power, and power was disproportionately held by white people, so that's who they married. Fukui is hitting me with a big cartoon mallet labeled "racism and its consequences persist in the politics of the Earth Federation."

And this... just doesn't exist in the OVA, I guess. They cut the lines about Ricardo's heritage from his speech, and he looks like any other white guy.

The anime as a whole so far has a general trend of cutting anything that directly mentions real-world racial identity or politics, without exception (see also: Syam and Banagher). They've also been erring on the side of lighter skin tones across the board, even in cases where novel description says otherwise.

The doctor on the Argama is described as Arab, with light tan skin. They coloured him half a shade darker than Banagher, who is half a shade darker than Mihiro.

Gilboa is Black. He's still Black here, but they gave him the absolute lightest possible skin tone that still reads as brown. He's way more ambiguous than his wife and kids, and they also have light brown skin. He's described as dark-skinned in the novel!

Yeah, people can have these skin tones with those backgrounds. Obviously. But they've chosen to convey information that is clear in the original text ambiguously, and they've done it to multiple characters.

I'm going on a bit of a tangent here, but this felt like the most appropriate place to bring it up. IT BOTHERS ME.

Anyway. Do you know who is the first character in the novel to bring up the rumours that Ricardo Marcenas was assassinated by the Federation? Because it isn't Daguza in the cockpit with Banagher-- that's later. It's Riddhe.

Riddhe is the one who suggests conservative elements within the Federation might have wanted to a eliminate a more liberal and idealistic Prime Minister while also providing an excuse to root out separatists on the basis of anti-terrorism. Riddhe is the one who gives a scathing account of what his family did in the aftermath of the assassination, where Ricardo's son took advantage of the situation to gain power with the support of the same conservatives who killed his father.

Riddhe says all that directly in front of his dad, who yells at him for spreading nonsense conspiracy theories, tells him he doesn't know anything about politics, and says that he abandoned his family. Wrow.

Riddhe is ultimately ashamed of himself for provoking his father just because he's angry. He thinks it's selfish and childish for him to risk jeopardizing the relationship when he's relying on his father's power to accomplish his goals and protect Mineva.

Calm down, he's a Senate Council member who can deal with the army that will suck up to him. I have to put aside all personal feelings and tell him.

Riddhe took Mineva's line about her responsibility as a member of the Zabi family very seriously. He comes back to it repeatedly. He doesn't want to have anything to do with his family, but he knows there are things that only he can do to help, precisely because of his family-- and he has an obligation to try.

There's a very interesting tension, where Riddhe is only even able to survive and successfully enact his plan because of the otherwise unwanted privilege conferred by his father. It's made clear that even that might not have saved him if he hadn't gotten extremely lucky! It comes up again and again, at every step of the plan.

No matter whether the "Nahel Argama" survives or not, Ensign Riddhe's military career will be at an end.

[...]

"I'm risking my life here as well. I might even end up facing the firing squad if I mess up here, you know?"

[...]

If the situation had happened during a Parliamentary Session, the contact would definitely bounce around amongst the secrataries, and the "Delta Plus" would most likely be shot down without any confirmation of its identity.

Even after they manage to land safely by using the name of his family as a shield, the guards surrounding them when they disembark are hostile and keep rifles trained on them the whole way.

I feel like this element of luck is part of why they swapped his model airplanes for a good luck charm, but it's still so weird to me. His luck is important because of the risks he's taking, and they're not really playing that up as much as they could be. They could tell us in retrospect, but Riddhe knew the risks going in, and that's important.

One thing he knows he's going to lose, unavoidably, is all of his established social relationships in the military.

Survivor's guilt and having lost friends is something that comes up a lot in Riddhe's internal dialogue after the destruction of Industrial 7. I talked about it a bit in the last post. His crewmates are people he cares about, not only in an abstract sense of duty and obligation, but as people.

He's clearly deeply hurt by lying to the crew about his real intentions during the attack on Palau, especially as some of them are glad to see him back and praising his bravery as a soldier.

Does OVA Riddhe have strong relationships to anyone on the Argama? Maybe. He gets some advice from a superior officer. He banters with one of the other pilots for three lines or so. The doctor certainly believes that Mihiro is on edge specifically because of Riddhe's "death", but there are no particularly significant interactions between them to confirm it.

Riddhe's romantic interest in Mihiro is established very early in the novels, when he asks her out to a movie before launching for the first battle. He says he needs something to look forward to so he'll come back alive.

This comes back again when he's heading out for the Palau mission, when she specifically privately contacts him:

(Good luck, Ensign Riddhe. I haven't forgotten the promise to watch a movie.)

And he just has to agree, knowing that he's not coming back and she's going to be mourning him, thinking he's dead. Man.

When it becomes clear the battle isn't going to go as planned, Mineva can sense Riddhe's hesitation. She tells him to stay and fight, because otherwise he'll regret it for the rest of his life. While this works as a character moment for Mineva in the anime, I don't feel like it's a convincing one for Riddhe. What made it work in the novels was that we already knew this was an accurate assessment of his feelings. In the anime, rather than her resolving the conflict for him, it almost feels like he hadn't even fully realized he was having one until she told him.

Maybe I'm being uncharitable and nitpicky, and this all comes across just fine to people without my preconceptions. I just can't shake the feeling that too much scaffolding for his character has been removed, so now even big character moments are failing to stand up on their own.

Riddhe's latent newtype connection to Banagher and their Man's Promise is plot important, but on an emotional level it is nothing to me. I don't care about Riddhe's masculine pride. I care about him having a fraught relationship with his shitty rich dad who he has deliberately avoided for years. I care about social bonds. I care about sacrifice.

Banagher's trust in Riddhe in the novel is meaningful because the audience has reason to believe that Riddhe deserves that trust.

I really hope they can integrate at least some of this stuff going forward, but I also worry it might be too late. I can imagine it failing so easily-- like if they give me Riddhe yelling at his dad, but without all the established context it just comes off like he's a brat throwing a tantrum.

I'm pretty sure his crush on Mineva is going to start becoming relevant now, too, so I need them to give me something to work with as soon as fucking possible if they don't want me to become a relentless little hater. Please.

I want to believe they can still flesh him out enough to work for me, even if it's not perfect.

Micott's arc is altered by changes to Riddhe's arc.

This isn't a super dramatic change, since she's not a load-bearing part of the narrative like Riddhe. I do think how they shifted things around is interesting and worth talking about, though.

In my post on OVA 2, I mentioned that Micott is the one who snitches on Mineva in the novel. This was removed in the anime, where instead Daguza just recognizes her face himself. Now the reason becomes clear-- they moved it here, instead.

In the novel, the second part of the conversation they have in this scene happens on the shuttle back from the Alaska. Since the Alaska was cut, they obviously couldn't do that, but having the betrayal without including the resolution would defeat the purpose. Their solution was to combine the betrayal and reconciliation into a single scene, by having Micott consider reporting Mineva's escape but ultimately back down. I think that's a very clever way to handle it.

Micott is more emotional in the novel version. The circumstances are completely different, so the difference in tone makes sense.

"I know this isn't something I should be saying. But sorry, I have no intention of apologizing to you. Your army was the one that decimated our colony." ... "But, I want to apologize to Banagher. If I don't, I..." The rest of her words were vague due to her crying.

She apologizes to Banagher in the novel equivalent to the hologram billiards scene, when Takuya deliberately leaves them alone for a bit so they can talk. Banagher is puzzled by her apology, and they just kind of cyclically apologize to each other for a bit. It's cute.

The novel version of the conversation is very unsubtle about implying that Banagher implicitly believes Riddhe is trustworthy because they have a psychic connection. Micott's line in the anime, where she just comments on Banagher behaving differently than usual, is more vague.

Micott also sticks up for Mineva to Banagher, which I thought was sweet.

"But since you helped her out once, you have to bear responsibility and help her out until the end. That girl's feeling rather down inside despite making a strong look."

The Vist Foundation: Martha, Alberto, and Gael

God, I love Martha. I've been waiting for her desperately. I loooove her anime design. She looks so good. My evil wife.

The Vist Foundation is much less present in the narrative than expected, so far. I'm not entirely sure what to think, but unlike Riddhe's changes, it doesn't raise any alarm bells for me (yet). The Foundation itself is central to the conflict, what with 『The Box』, but all the individual people in it are minor characters.

Do you remember Gael, Cardeas' bodyguard? At this point in the novel, Gael is on the Garencieres. His interactions with Zinnerman and the rest of the crew are very tense and uneasy, but he's a key player in the plan to rescue Marida. He talks to Banagher briefly during the battle as well, just like Gilboa.

Gael wants to capture Alberto and force him to publicly reveal information about Martha, thus ruining her reputation. This allows him to have his revenge for Cardeas without killing her (since Syam objected to him doing so).

For Marida's escape-- rather than being blown out into space, the guys transporting her are gunned down by Gael, and that's when she takes the opportunity to slip out of her bonds.

Gael confronts Alberto about killing Cardeas, and Alberto has some interesting dialogue:

"THAT MAN ONLY CARED ABOUT HIMSELF! HE THOUGHT THAT HE COULD DECIDE EVERYTHING JUST BECAUSE HE'S STRONG! HE THOUGHT THAT PEOPLE WHO WERE WEAKER WERE JUST SLACKING OFF... BUT I'VE BEEN WORKING SO HARD!"

[...]

"Aunt [Martha] was very kind ... She was willing to recognize and accept me. Dad doesn't know about such things."

I could imagine Alberto having a conversation like this with Marida instead, since it's related to her reason for saving him in the novel-- she recognized his connection to Banagher. When Marida saw Banagher's mind, she saw the burden placed on him by Cardeas, and she sees the same thing in Alberto. She mentions that they both have the same sadness in their eyes.

(We still haven't seen Martha tell Alberto that Banagher is his half-brother, by the way. Is Marida going to tell him instead? Does he know? I need to know if he knows!)

Anyway. Alberto shoots Gael and more crew from the Nahel Argama arrive, having heard the commotion. Gael flees.

The scene keeps going, but I'm stopping here, since we might be getting into stuff for the next one.

Daguza has a lot of backstory that doesn't make it in.

Man, this guy is carrying around so much baggage. Banagher has no idea. Content warning for child death for this part. Scroll down to the screenshots if at any point you decide you don't want to read it.

After the conversation with Banagher in the tea room, we get a much longer conversation between Daguza and the other ECOAS guy. We learn about "The Sweetwater Operation", during which ECOAS murdered a bunch of children as collateral while trying to take out a group of terrorists. Yes.

Sweetwater was a refugee colony. The living conditions were terrible, basically a slum, and it eventually became a hub for anti-Federation activity. During Char's Counterattack, it was a working base for Neo Zeon. After the conflict ended, it became "a breeding ground for terrorist planning."

"Those terrorists ignored human rights and laws, so their crimes that went beyond the law should be punished by means beyond the law" -- gee, where have I heard that before? What could Fukui possibly be referencing here?

To summarize: intelligence failed to report the presence of a school bus, ECOAS blew up a bunch of kids along with the terrorists, 33 of them died, and the four who survived were disabled for the rest of their lives. Investigators covered up the incident and it was reported as an accident, but rumours still spread within the Federation special forces. ECOAS was nicknamed "The Manhunters."

Honestly, I think it's a kind of contrived scenario compared to the much more cruelly mundane way that kids and other innocent civilians get murdered during anti-terrorist raids and drone strikes in real life, but I see what Fukui was going for.

From that point on, ECOAS continued to be given dirty missions due to their reputation. I would bet those 33 kids are not the only children they've killed during their career.

They do a lot of justifying it to themselves during the conversation. "It was the intelligence branch's fault, we couldn't do anything." "Well, we were facing a group a group of people who would drop colonies and asteroids on the Earth. If we didn't take them down all at once, there might have been more children killed." "Yes, we have to allow a little sacrifice for the sake of the many." Again, all very familiar.

Despite his words, it's very obvious that Daguza feels guilty. His discussion of himself as a cog is a lot more charged when you know exactly what kind of violence he enacted as part of the machine.

Let me ask honestly, what is this order we have to protect even if it means killing children? [...] Despite understanding that, I still continue to kill myself off, telling myself consistently that it can’t be helped. Won’t I become a real cog gradually? I swallowed reality and sold out myself bit by bit. In this sense, I’m a foolish creature who’s sealed in this shell called an adult.

While they do talk about how Banagher is a child during this conversation, we don't get the line from the OVA here about never having had children and Daguza's implicit fatherly feelings toward Banagher.

The idea does come up later, with Daguza expressing that no matter what the box is, it's not worth exchanging for the future of a child like Banagher. It's pretty clear that this is the reason he's so ready to go to his death.

And what a death it was.

He wanted to hand his life to a child, a child who would think about the future. Of course, he did not think that he could wash away all his guilt after all the atrocity he did, but he felt surprisingly happy that he could do this. He, who only knew how to act on priorities to fulfil his duties, was leaving everything to a young life that had no blood relations or bonds with him ...

Holy shit.

I love the Sinanju with its busted face. Such a look.

Anyway, this death is one that I think is more disturbing than it was in the original text. The decision to let his rocket launcher float just far enough from the beam to survive and then splatter against the emblem is downright nasty. It allows for a person whose body has been totally vaporized to still look like they're leaving behind remains. It feels like a full body gore splatter, even if closely watching the sequence makes it clear it's not. That rules.

And that's when we get our second Destroy Mode activation.

A Gundam is a monster. A Gundam is a devil.

Do you ever think about how Frontal is tactically the single most important person on the battlefield for his side, but he puts himself at risk of burning to death to stop the Unicorn from killing Angelo? Because I do. I think about it a lot.

RIP Gilboa. It really hit me while watching that Banagher has multiple potential surrogate father figures who explode directly in front of him, much like his real dad did. So far, Otto is the only adult man to survive giving Banagher friendly paternal advice.

If you've read all this, thanks for indulging me. I hope it was interesting.

I'm really looking forward to watching the next one. I've heard good things, and that arc of the novel, uh... well, it's a lot. I'll have to think about how much I even want to get into it.

#remibloggue #gundam unicorn #gundam

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saetoru · 2 years

Text

[ 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐇 𝐎𝐑 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓 ] 𝐑𝐘𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐉𝐈 𝐊𝐄𝐍 (𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐍).

“excuse me, sir,” you stifle a giggle as you enter the shop, making draken roll his eyes. “i seem to have lost my way. would you be so kind as to give me a lift home?” you motion at his bike, and he fights back the small grin that threatens to tugs at his lips.

it’s getting dark, and draken has half a mind to scold you for showing up to his shop all by yourself, but he can’t really find it in him when a small little giggle escapes you as you hide your smile behind your hand.

“that’ll cost you for my services,” he shoots back, packing up his tools as he gets ready to close for the night.

the bike shop’s been busier as of late. and it’s a good thing, really—it’s not as slow as it once was, not a small worry in the back of his mind that things won’t end up working out. it means he doesn’t have to live in the storage room of the brothel anymore, means he can get a place with you now—however rundown and small it may be.

but it also means less time with draken, means later nights of him tinkering away and working on messed up engines and faulty brakes. so you decide to squeeze in a few extra moments where you can.

“how’s your favorite for dinner sound? that should cover my total,” you hum, arms looping around his neck. a low chuckle rumbles through his chest before his hands find your hips. he presses a chaste kiss to your forehead, longer than it needs to be, longer than he tells himself—but he can’t really pull away once the warmth of your skin hits his.

“we only take cash or credit, i’m afraid,” he teases. you pout, swatting his chest playfully as you huff.

“you’ll never grow a business that way,” you argue, “there’s lots of potential regular customers you’ll be missing out on.”

“that so?” he raises a brow, sighing softly as you press a few kisses along his jaw, stopping just as you reach below his ear. he closes his eyes, lets the soft pad of your finger as it traces his cheek soothe the long day’s ache in his muscles.

“yeah. i think you should add kisses to the list of payment methods. you’d be rich if i was your customer.”

“well, too bad for you, i gotta split the profit with inupi. he’s not gettin’ none of those,” he flicks your forehead, one arm curling around your body and pulling you closer against his chest.

“i’ll give them to you as a tip, then,” you offer.

“kay, tip me then,” he taps his cheek with his finger. you lean in to press a peck to his face—and then you pull away just before your lips touch his skin.

he scowls, hand cupping the back of your neck to keep you from pulling away any further.

“nuh uh, you gotta pay me for my services,” he grunts, “where do ya think you’re goin’?”

“i don’t know if you’ve noticed,” and now it’s your turn to flick his forehead, laughing as his lips form a frown—and really, it’s more is a slight pout, but he’ll never admit it, “but we’re not at home yet. you’ve gotta give me a lift first.”

“you bring a helmet?” he purses his lips. you glower at him as you shake your head.

“no,” you mumble. he grunts unhappily. “but that’s not fair,” you whine, “you ride a bike without a helmet all the time, kenny.”

“and that’s no reason why you shouldn’t,” he says firmly, grabbing your hand and pulling you to follow him out the door so he can close the shop. “lucky for you, i got an extra just in case.”

his palm is callused and rough against your soft one, and for a moment he wonders how someone as hard and sharp as him can fit with someone as gentle and delicate as you—but he supposes your fingers entwine perfectly, and your hand fits in his like a glove.

and then you squeeze, and he squeezes back, and it doesn’t really matter anymore.

“you’re no fun, kenny,” you grumble, lips curled into that soft pout of yours—the one that almost, almost makes him reconsider.

but then he remembers things he really doesn’t want to, and his hand tightens around yours the tightest it ever has—you glance at him in concern, and he loosens his grip just a little.

“you still look cute in a helmet, baby,” he assures as he shoots you a tight-lipped smile, one that really doesn’t reach his eyes. and you understand, just like you always have, so you stop him in his tracks and cup his cheeks before pressing a few tender kisses across his face, stopping just above his lips.

“do i look the cutest ever?”

“the cutest ever,” he agrees, snorting as he shakes his head in amusement. the tension leaves his shoulders as you smile softly—and then your lips touch, and your arms find his neck as his find your hips, and everything’s fine again.

and he lets himself hold onto a little faith that it always will be.

“fine, i’ll wear one,” you mumble against his mouth, “but consider this your tip paid in advance.”

#teepods.writings #drabbles.#draken x reader #draken x you #draken fluff #ryuguji ken x reader #ryuguji ken x you #ryuguji ken fluff #tr x reader #tr x you #tr fluff #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers x you #tokyo revengers fluff #tokrev x reader #tokrev x you #tokrev fluff

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boxofbonesfic · 3 years

Text

oral fixation

paiting: Bucky Barnes x Reader

rating: Explicit

summary: Your newest kink throws you—and Bucky—for a loop.

warnings: fluff, smut, ball worship, suckin’ on those nuts

A/N: OKAY TAKE TWO, BECAUSE MY FORMATTING WAS BOOTYASS—okay, i really have no excuse, nor am i gonna give one. @angrythingstarlight and @sweeterthanthis are partially at fault for my new obsession, lmfao. originally this was gonna be like… 1.5k words, but here we are at 3,464, so… that’s short for me 😂 thank you all for reading, and as always, comments and reblogs are appreciated and welcomed! This is a work of FICTION, and it contains Adult themes, so I assume once you’ve clicked through the link that you are comfortable with that. I do not give consent for my work to be copied, translated, or posted elsewhere, even if I am credited. This work is entirely mine, and unbeta’d, so read at your own risk! MINORS, DNI!

⚽️

Something is wrong with you—it’s gotta be. There’s no reasonable explanation for your latest fixation, and honestly it would be ten times easier to blame Bucky if he was even remotely at fault. But for once, he actually isn’t. For once, this fantasy isn’t born from the filth that spills from his lips when he’s bottoming out inside your pussy, or while his cock spasms as he shoots down your throat. No, for once, this one is all you.

Today is the day. You think, massaging shampoo determinedly into your wild hair as you stand beneath the shower stream. Today is the day I stop fantasizing about my boyfriend’s balls.

It starts innocently enough—the smooth weight of them resting against your chin as he fucked your throat, the scent of the cocoa-butter lotion he won’t stop stealing from you, stuck to the soft, sensitive skin. You can’t help but incorporate them when you’re down there—what are you supposed to do? Ignore them? They’re always so heavy, and when you pull gently on them as you wrap your lips around the thick head of his cock, his hips always stutter against your face.

Goddammit, I’m doing it again. You shake your head, attempting to clear it. You’re a good girl, and good girls certainly don’t think about sucking their boyfriend’s balls—right? But you can’t help it—all you can think about as you rinse the lather from your hair is how they’ll taste. How they’ll feel on your tongue, the skin smooth and clean, hair neatly trimmed back—

“Stop it!” you hiss at yourself out loud, your cheeks heating as you press wet hands to them. You can’t keep thinking about this—not just because it’s not even remotely productive, but also because you’ll be seeing Bucky later at the Stark Industries picnic, and you promised you’d bake a pie.

A promise you were now regretting—mainly because all you wanted to do was lay down in your bed and sink your fingers into the growing heat at the apex of your thighs, all while fantasizing about your boyfriends balls on your face—

The sound of your phone ringing snapped you out of your daze, and you wrapped the towel around yourself quickly as you grabbed it off of the bathroom counter. You almost dropped it as you scrambled to answer, your tone panicked. “H-hello?”

“Hey, baby-doll.” Bucky’s smooth baritone sends shivers down your spine, and your pussy clenched in response. It’s got to be some sort of satanic coincidence that he should call now, as you’re trying your hardest not to think about him. “D’you need a ride to the picnic later? I’m pickin’ up some stuff for Sam.” he’s just being a good boyfriend, just trying to help, and you have to stop yourself from telling him to come right over and just shove his cock down your stupid throat.

“N-no. I’m all set, I’m about to start cooking soon.”

“I can’t wait to eat that pie,” he groans through the receiver, before letting out a sinister chuckle. “There’s lotsa stuff I can’t wait to eat.”

If you could have burst into flame, you probably would have. You almost wanted to cancel the entire day and hide out in your apartment. This was already so embarrassing, and you weren’t sure if you could handle seeing Bucky like this. The only thing stopping you was the knowledge that if you didn’t go, he would simply turn up on your doorstep later, knowing something was amiss.

“O-oh?” you squeaked, and he laughed.

“I’ll see you there, baby.”

“O-okay. I, um, I’ll see you there.” you ended the call, and leaned heavily on the counter. Hopefully you can make it through an afternoon without your embarrassment getting the better of you.

Doubtful.

⚽️

“Hey, glad you could make it!” Wanda exclaims, helping make space for your blueberry cobbler on the table. It’s already laden with food, but you’ve seen how some of these men eat, so you’re not particularly worried about it not getting eaten.

“Sorry I’m late,” you reply sheepishly, returning her hug. You’d given in as soon as the pie went into the oven, your fingers finding their way down to your hungry cunt as you imagined Bucky resting his heavy, full balls against your lips, your nose pressed to the underside of his cock—and then your alarm was going off, and you were frantically rushing into the kitchen to wash your hands and pull your cobbler out of the oven.

And that had left almost no time to change your clothes and hurriedly jet out of the house, the evidence of your earlier attempts smearing shamefully on your inner thighs.

“Don’t worry about it! I’m sure Bucky will be glad to see you, he was looking.” she looks down at the pie, licking her lips. “Looks amazing.” you laugh, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

“Would you like me to cut you a piece?” you ask, reaching for the knife. “I’m sure it’s cool enough to cut now.”

“I’d love a piece.” Bucky’s voice behind you makes you jump, and his arms come up underneath your own to wrap around your torso. Warmth spreads through you at the contact, and you lean back, letting him rest his chin on top of your head. “Hey baby.” you awkwardly cut Wanda a square, your elbows bumping into Bucky’s arms as he refuses to let you go.

“Here you go.” you hand her the plate, and she thanks you before returning to the crowd to mingle. You turn in Bucky’s arms, resting your palms against his chest. “That is not good knife safety, sir.” you giggle, poking him with an accusing finger. He chuckles.

“I’m durable.” Bucky tucks a finger under your chin tilting your face up so he can claim your mouth with his own. His tongue traces the seam of your lips and you part for him unquestioningly. “Mmm. Always so sweet,” he mumbles against your mouth, and as you feel your thighs sliding slickly together, you remember what you’ve been thinking about all goddamn weekend—and you jump backwards, the backs of your knees banging against the table. Bucky cocks his head at you, lifting a brow. “You okay, sweetheart?”

“Y-yeah. Just peachy.” you squeak, tangling and untangling your fingers in the fabric of your sundress. “I’m, um, I’m gonna go check on um—” you scrambled to find an inoffensive name in your mental roster. “—Peter. Yep. Peter asked me to, um, help him—” your eyes scanned the crowd, looking for him. “unload food.”

“Most of the food’s already unloaded,” Bucky replied, fixing you with a look that spoke of his confusion. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yep! I said I would help, so—” you scooted around him, pretending you didn’t hear Bucky call your name worriedly as you fled. Your cheeks were hot enough to fry an egg, and you’re certain if you stood there any longer, you were going to combust. You didn’t want Bucky thinking you were a freak—you weren’t the most… experienced sexual partner, and what you didn’t know, you tried to make up for in enthusiasm. What would he think of you, knowing you’d been daydreaming about rubbing your face all over his balls? Hell, you didn’t even know what to think of you.

You found Peter over by the water jugs, and asked him for a paper cup.

“You okay?” you were getting tired of people asking you if you were okay—you weren’t. You were so far from okay—you weren’t even in the same state as okay, maybe not even on the same continent. “You look a little shaky.” you nodded mutely, gulping down three little paper cups worth of water before answering.

“Just peachy.” you’d been so excited to see Bucky this weekend, but now you couldn’t stand to be around him, not when all your thoughts were x-rated and starring him. “Do you… do you um, need help unloading anything?” you asked lamely, looking for any excuse you could find to not be around the general public.

“Nope! I think we got everything all done to Mr. Stark’s specifications,” he said brightly. “Egg toss is all set up, and the bean bag toss bins are all full… I think all the food’s out too, but you could check with Vision—” you were off before he even had a chance to finish talking, speeding away towards the compound and away from the grassy field.

The hangar, usually full of intimidating jets, was currently empty and full of balloons in preparation for the adult-only dance party that would be held in here later. You weren’t sure if Stark Family Fun Day was his idea or not, but you suspected it had probably been all Pepper. The hangar was devoid of people and Vision, who had most likely snuck off with Wanda since he wasn’t much for crowds either.

You busy yourself with tasks that no one had given you—stacking napkins, organizing the cutlery in containers, tidying the tables. Anything you could find to avoid embarrassing yourself in front of Bucky further. The relationship was still so new, you didn’t think your fragile ego could take it if he decided he didn’t want you around anymore.

“There you are, doll.”Oh no. Oh no, no, no. “I’ve been lookin’ everywhere for you, doll. I thought we were supposed to spend today together.” he emphasizes the word and looks at you expectantly while you stare pointedly at a very interesting spot on the floor near his shoe. “Parker told me I might find you in here.”

“I, um, I wanted to be helpful.” you supply lamely, and he quirks an eyebrow.

“Really.”

“O-of course!”

“And you’re not avoiding me.”

Crap. “No! No, not at all.”

“ ‘Cause, you know, I understand why you might… why you might not want to be seen with me.” Bucky rubs the back of his neck nervously with the vibranium arm. The words hit you hard, knocking the proverbial wind from you. He thought you were ashamed of him. That you didn’t want anyone knowing you were together, which was the furthest thing from the truth you could imagine. Honestly, the real answer was much less serious, and much more embarrassing.

You rush forward to grab his hands, shaking your head. “No. I’m not, I could never—Bucky—” the words are all fighting to get to your mouth at once, and he chuckles before hushing you.

“It’s okay, doll. I get it.” he’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He doesn’t believe me.

“No! You don’t get it,” you stammer. “Bucky, I’m—I’m not embarrassed of you! I…I like you so much, and I’m just so anxious and stupid, I don’t want to ruin it.” his shoulders sag with relief, and suddenly you’re crushed against his chest, the breath squeezed from your lungs in a harsh wheeze.

“Thank fuckin’ God.” you hear him murmur into your hair, and now you feel double bad. You sigh—or at least, you try to, as your lungs won’t currently expand all the way—and lean your head against the firm muscles of his chest.

“It’s not… it’s not you.” you say, your voice muffled by his body. He allows you to pull away a little, looking down at you curiously.

“What? What’s not me?”

Your heart hammers in your chest. You owe him the truth, as much as it may make you wish your heart would just give out right there on the spot. Although, now that you think of it, Tony’s probably got tons of spare parts lying around to prevent just such an occasion. You lick your dry lips. “I, um. I was avoiding you, but it’s not what you think—”

“Why?”

“I, um…” you take steadying breath and close your eyes, the words leaving your lips in a rushed exhale. “Ireallywanttoplaywithyourballs.” your cheeks heat so fast you’re surprised smoke isn’t pouring out of your ears. Bucky’s brows furrow as he stares at you. There’s a glimmer of understanding in his steel blue eyes, and you know his next question is for clarification.

Because there’s no way you just said what he thinks you said.

“I didn’t catch that, baby. One more time.”

“I… oh Christ on a fucking—I want to p-play with your, um, your balls.” you can’t bear to look at him, so you press your face into his chest. You can both hear and feel his reverberating laughter, and you want more than ever before to melt into an unwitting puddle on the concrete floor of the hangar. Slowly, Bucky peels your fingers from his shirt, uncurling them and holding your hands in his as he steps back enough to see your face.

“Is that why you’ve been treatin’ me like a leper all day, sweetheart?” you nod.

“Is that… weird?”

“No! Well, I don’t know,” he admits sheepishly. “Never really had anybody… want to do anything to ‘em before.” although Bucky doesn’t seem to be an expert, his acceptance releases a knot in your chest you hadn’t even realized was there. Your cheeks keep flaming up, and finally you cover your face with your hands as more embarrassed admissions form on your tongue.

“It’s just… I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I got so worked up and I didn’t know if you were going to think I was weird, and, and—” another deep, knowing chuckle emanates from his chest, and he runs his tongue across his bottom lip as he grins at you.

“Get you all sloppy ‘n messy thinkin’ about it, huh?” he teases, his hands coming up to gently peel your own away from your heated face. “Look at me, sweetheart.” you do, reluctantly. Your eyes are wet with unshed tears, and Bucky clucks his tongue at you pityingly. “Just been walkin’ around all wound up like a spring, huh, honey?” whenever he uses that voice, you know you’re a goner, your knees going weak as you nod at him.

“Yes,” you admit. Bucky captures your mouth in a kiss and you let out a tiny moan, your hands going to his shoulders to keep you up. He casts a quick look toward the entrance—it’s still early for the dance party, it doesn’t start for another hour. You know he’s listening too, using his enhanced hearing to check that you’re really alone.

“Aw, fuck, sweetheart. You shoulda’ said.” he drags you over to the far wall and into the shadows before stepping in front of you. He doesn’t say anything, but you know he’s in front just in case anyone does walk in—they won’t see you. Your heart is pounding—the riskiest thing he’s managed to convince you to do is fuck in the car, which had been terrifying and subsequently the hardest Bucky had ever made you cum.

Maybe that was what had started this recent chain of deviant thought—perhaps Bucky was to blame after all. You sink to your knees of your own accord, and he strokes your hair affectionately, his gaze locked on you.

“Get me out, baby.”

Your fingers are on his fly before he’s finished speaking, tugging the zipper down and tracing the already half hard length of him through his cotton briefs. He’s so thick, you almost can’t touch your fingers around his base. You pull the waistband down his hips, unable to stifle the little moan that worms past your lips as his cock springs free, bumping against your cheek heavily. Bucky licks his lips, his eyes dark as he watches; content not to give orders.

You’re in charge. It’s kind of a heady feeling, and for once you forget your embarrassment as you lean forward to lave wetly along the side of his cock. “Shit, doll.” his hips buck forward towards you. You stroke along the base, breath catching as your hand finds its prize.

His balls are soft and smooth, and you smirk as you smell your own cocoa butter lotion—so that’s where it went. They’re so full, and you test their weight in your hand as Bucky groans. You feel drunk even though you haven’t had a single sip of alcohol, and you’re emboldened by his now rock hard cock, bobbing next to your face. You scoot closer, grasping him with one hand and bowing lower until—oh my god.

You were right—they’re soft and warm and heavy and fuck, you are so goddamn wet. You push your nose right up against the base of his cock, laving a wet kiss on the underside as you nuzzle against him. He moans softly, his hand fisting in your hair over and over. You take that as your cue to continue, and wet your tongue before leaving a long wet trail down the side of his sac.

His grip tightens as he pushes your face against his balls—you know he has no control over it, an impulse he can’t curb because your tongue there has him seeing stars. “Fuck, baby, please,” he pants. “Again.” you oblige, sucking one against your lips. A sharp shudder runs through him and he fists his hand against the wall. You’re overwhelmed with the musky scent of him, the softness of his skin and the pulsing ache between your own thighs—and then you’re sucking it into your mouth, the other resting against your cheek as you knead it with your tongue.

Bucky’s mumbling curses above you, mixed in to holy prayers and filth that makes your face burn hot again even as you peek up at him through your lashes. His cock throbs in your grip, and you take a moment to spread the copious precum dripping from the tip. You peel back his foreskin with a gentle pull, your thumb swiping across the fat head of him. “God, doll, d-drivin’ me fuckin’ c-crazy,” he catches his lips in his teeth to stifle a moan.

It’s sloppy, and you make no effort to stop drool from dribbling down your chin as you switch from one side of his balls to the other, and it trails wetly across your cheek. Bucky’s always the one in charge, so seeing him weak in the knees for you, his cock dripping precum down onto your face and dress as you suck on his balls is just… addictive.

He’s actively fucking into your hand now, and there’s no way to hide the noises his slick cock makes against your palm. “Shit, ah, doll—” his eyes go wide, and suddenly he tries to stand away from you. “Baby—fuck—somebody’s comin’—!”

You’ll probably regret this—fuck, you know you will—but you don’t stop. Your hold on his cock tightens just a little, and you suck just a little harder against his sac before releasing it, spit glistening on around your mouth. “Then… cum fast.” you open your jaw as wide as it’ll go, and you’re barely—barely—able to fit them both in your mouth. You watch as his eyes roll shut and he whines, his hips moving urgently against your hand.

You can feel his balls convulsing against your tongue, contracting and releasing. You don’t let up, suckling them as his moans turn broken and guttural. “F-fuck baby, please gonna—your mouth—” you understand what he means, and reluctantly release his sac from the confines of your lips, only to wrap them around the head of his cock instead. Bucky grasps the sides of your face as his hips surge forward, seating him firmly in your throat just as his cock spasms. A deep, animal groan tears itself from his chest as he cums down your throat. You have no choice but to swallow, the hot jets of his spend pumping down into your stomach.

His hands are clumsy and slow as he tries to button his jeans back up, and as you attempt to stand, your thighs slide together with audible slickness, and by the way Bucky’s eyes flick up to meet yours, you know he hears it. He’s wiping the wetness from your face when you spy Wanda tentatively peeking around the entrance. Your stomach drops—you should have stopped. Fuck, why didn’t you stop?

“Guys?” she calls, laughter clear in her tone. “Are you… done? I have Vision distracting everyone, but…” she pauses. “I think we’re running out of time.”

Luckily for you, Bucky answers.

“Yeah Wanda.” you’re clutching his shirt, hidden behind him as he chuckles, before speaking over his shoulder. “We’re going to finish this in my bedroom.” his hand wraps around your wrist as he tugs you forward.

“B-but what about the pie?”

“Don’t you worry, baby-doll, I’m gonna me get some right now.”

Fin

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes smut #ball worship #shameless smut really #bucky barnes x black!reader #mcu fanfiction #mcu fic #boxofbonesfic #smut

3K notes · View notes

siderealscribblings · 3 years

Text

“I am ninety-nine percent sure I know who Chat Noir is.”

It was a heck of a thing to drop out of the blue, but since Marinette revealed her identity to Ladybug, Marinette had gotten used to Alya texting or calling at odd hours with sudden revelations.

(“THAT’S how you knew Lila was lying?!”)

(“So when you skipped on our hangout sess a few months ago, was it because-”)

(“I’m just saying, I know I guy who might be able to doxx Hawk Moth.”)

Unlike her usual stunning revelations though, this one was not one Marinette already knew.

“Okay,” Marinette said, blinking to keep her eyes from completely bugging out of their sockets. “How do you-”

“I just felt like I should be honest, you know?” Alya chuckled. “Since...you know-”

“Yeah, no...thanks,” Marinette said, slightly dazed. “I...um...how do you know?”

“Well...let’s just say I noticed a pattern,” Alya said, chewing on the corner of her lip. “Do you want to know who-”

“No,” Marinett said, before quickly adding. “I mean...it would be better to keep things between us secret for now.”

Alya opened her mouth, an argument on the tip of her tongue, but seemed to swallow it with a nod. “Okay...yeah, sure, I get it.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” Marinette said quickly, maybe more for her own benefit than Alya’s. “I do! I swear! I just-”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Alya said quickly.

“And he’s wanted to reveal ourselves to each other for a long time,” Marinette muttered, ignoring Alya’s easy-out. “I was the one who insisted we keep our identities secret and I’m just...really, really not looking forward to the conversation where I tell him I was the one to break our no-sharing rule...you think he’ll be mad?”

“You tell me ,” Alya said, throwing her hands up. “He’s your partner-”

“He’s going to be mad ,” Marinette moaned, burying her face in her hands. “And hurt and-”

“And...so what?” Alya asked.

“So he’s my partner and we already have this...trust...thing between us,” Marinette sighed. “Long story short the last Guardian wasn’t a very good teacher to him and he’s had to deal with being locked out of the loop before...I just worry that I keep asking him to trust me while constantly keeping secrets from him.”

“And he’s keeping one from you,” Alya said gently. “Kind of a crappy situation all around but...well, let’s just say I think he’s a really understanding guy.”

“I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who constantly has to just understand me though,” Marinette said with a wince. “Sorry, I don’t mean to keep dumping all my Ladybaggage on you.”

“I’ll tell you if I’ve had enough,” Alya said firmly, squeezing Marinette’s wrist. “I don’t mind; really.”

If she lived another hundred years, she would never stop trying to return the kindness and understanding Alya had displayed to her since revealing her identity.

“Thanks,” Marinette said,, the movie on the screen forgotten as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “So...n-not that I’m prying for details but...this guy you think is Chat Noir-”

“Sounds like you’re prying for details,” Alya snickered. “Don’t tell me you’re curious about him.”

“Of course I am!” Marinette huffed. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“I don’t need to be curious; I figured out my boyfriend’s identity by myself,” Alya said smugly. “You want covert deets?”

Marinette weighed her words carefully before speaking. “Is he...out of costume...when he goes home...is he happy?”

Alya’s expression was unreadable for a long moment. “Do you want the truth or...do you want me to say something that will make you feel good?”

“Well that tells me the truth probably sucks, doesn’t it?” Marinette sighed, rubbing her eyes. “He’s got...he’s got a lot of friends, right?”

“He has a...few really good ones,” Alya reasoned.

“And his family?” Marinette asked.

“His family...exists,” Alya said as diplomatically as she could. “Look, we’re treading on major spoiler territory here; can you tell me what you want to know so I can pull it out from all the other information?”

Marinette stared down at her hands thoughtfully for a moment. “...being the Guardian by myself has been one of the loneliest times in my life. I have you now; I had Master Fu for a lot longer than he did. It would make me feel better if I knew Chat Noir was...okay outside the suit. But I think you just answered my question.”

“Look, I can’t tell you how he feels,” Alya said, rubbing Marinette’s shoulder gently. “I can’t read minds, Mari...but-”

“You think I should tell him about me?” Marinette asked hesitantly.

“I think that’s your call,” Alya said. “Do you want my advice?”

“You think I should talk to him,” Marinette said, deflating a little.

“If he finds out from someone who isn’t you, it’s not gonna do wonders for the whole Trust thing you got going on,” Alya said. “And...look, I think it’s great you reached out to me. And I think whatever you want to do with your identity is your business...but I think he deserves the same opportunity to confide in someone. In fact...I think he really needs it.”

“But how do I know he’ll pick the right person?” Marinette blurted out. “What if he picks someone who Hawk Moth compromises and-”

“Didn’t you just say you trusted him?” Alya asked, stopping Marinette’s catastrophizing in her tracks.

“I do...I promise I do...but-”

“You either do or you don’t,” Alya said softly. “And telling him that you broke your rules and he can’t is not going to convince him you trust him. Saying you trust someone is like saying you’re going to work out; you don’t get the results unless you actually do it.”

“I could pick someone for him,” Marinette muttered, looking up at Alya. “Someone trustworthy.”

“Someone you trust,” Alya said. “This has to be someone he trusts. Or else what’s the point?”

“You already know though!” Marinette said.

“ Hey Chat Noir, I completely trust you with my life but also, I’m going to make the choice of who you can and can’t talk to about your personal business,” Alya said, watching Marinette’s nose wrinkle in irritation. “Tell me how that chat is going to go.”

“You know ignoring your advice is getting harder now that you know about me,” Marinette grumbled, crossing her arms.

“Ignore it if you want; just don’t be surprised if this pushes you apart,” Alya shrugged.

“It won’t, he’ll…” Marinette trailed off. “He wouldn’t stop being my partner over this, right?”

“And if he did?” Alya probed. “Just pick a new Chat Noir.”

“I don’t-” Marinette swallowed, shaking her head. “No...I don’t want another Chat Noir.”

“Then you’re going to have to keep this one,” Alya said, squeezing her shoulder. “That means being honest and fair with your partner; if not about your identity, then about his .”

Marinette nodded mutely, turning her gaze back to the movie as Alya stood up. “Want something from the kitchen?”

“I’m good,” Marinette said, fidgeting with her bracelet as she tried not to dread the conversation she knew she had to have.

---

To his credit, the storm of accusations she imagined would come out of Chat Noir’s mouth did not come; Ladybug might have felt better if they did.

Instead, her partner looked dazed, blinking and nodding as his gaze turned away from her. “...okay-”

“I swear this is not about you,” Ladybug said quickly, tugging on Chat Noir’s arm as he turned away from her. “And it doesn’t mean I don’t trust you! I swear I do.”

“No I...I understand,” Chat Noir said, the cheer in his voice becoming more and more forced. “Um...you know, I-I have a lot of homework to do tonight-”

“Chat...please look at me,” Ladybug said, tilting her partner’s face towards hers. Of course she had made him cry, but she tried to push down her guilt. This wasn’t about what she did; given the same choice, she would have picked Alya again, even if it meant hurting Chat Noir in the process.

“I know I don’t have a lot of opportunities to display how much I trust you,” Ladybug said, licking her lips. “So it probably feels like I just tossed aside a huge chance to show how much you mean to me...but this was about me doing what I needed-”

“You don’t need to...you’re the Guardian-”

“That doesn't make me your master !” Ladybug said emphatically, startling Chat Noir out of his daze. “That doesn’t mean I can control who you talk to and who you confide in! I still...I still think we’re too close and rely on each other too much to jeopardize our working relationship...but if there’s someone in your life you trust, I...I want you to have the same opportunity. To confide in someone you trust.”

“Not you though,” Chat Noir muttered.

“There has to be someone else,” Ladybug said almost desperately. “Tell me I’m not the only person in your life you can rely on…”

Alya had been such a positive force in her life since she had told her; she thought back to all the times they had stayed up late talking, all the times Alya had listened to her vent about akuma, all the nights she held her hand because she had watched Chat Noir die to save her yet again.

Was there no one Chat Noir could turn to when he was alone?

Chat Noir seemed to chew it over for a long moment, blinking back tears still as he tried to grapple with the fact his relationship with Ladybug had shifted out from underneath him yet again. “...do I have to tell you who it is?”

“I think it’s better if you don’t,” Ladybug said softly. “Sorry...if I knew who you trusted, I might be able to figure out who you are. This way...I’m not the only one keeping secrets-”

“I don’t want to keep secrets,” Chat Noir grumbled.

“I know,” Ladybug sighed. “And I promise, I swear, the minute Hawk Moth is gone, there will be no more secrets between us! This... mess of half-truths and half-lies will end and we can just be-”

The idea of being something to Chat Noir outside the mask was something not even Alya knew; a secret all her own that might never come to light.

“This is just for now,” Ladybug said firmly. “Not forever.”

Chat Noir nodded, once again resigned to a fate someone else had picked for him. “I get it...I do.”

“Are you mad at me?” Ladybug asked.

Chat Noir weighed the answer for a long moment. “...no,” Chat Noir said with a shrug. “Just...can we pick this up some other time? I wasn’t kidding about the homework.”

For the first time there was a real wall between her and Chat Noir and Ladybug was shocked by how much she detested it.

“I understand,” Ladybug said quietly. “But I meant what I said when I said you should find someone to turn to. I wish I could help you with everything, but-”

“For now...you can’t,” Chat Noir nodded, putting on a brave face. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Ladybug let Chat Noir slip out of her fingertips, momentarily reaching out to pull him back before thinking better of herself. She didn’t expect him to be sunshine and rainbows after telling him, but as firm as she was in her convictions, it still sucked to see him in pain.

Just deal with it yourself like he has to, Ladybug thought as she watched Chat Noir turn and dive off the roof of the building. Alya’s had enough on her plate...you don’t need to bother her with-

Her resolve lasted until she transformed, blinking back tears as she pulled her phone out of her pocket.

---

“Did I do the right thing?”

Alya said nothing, running her hands through Ladybug’s hair as she laid her head on her lap.

“Sometimes...doing the right thing hurts people as a result,” Alya said carefully. “It’s just a sucky part of life.”

“I hate it,” Ladybug sniffed, wiping her eyes with another tissue. “I think he thinks I love keeping secrets from him but...I really hate it. It makes me feel so alone...and I don’t want him to feel that way either.”

“And he can figure out how to feel less alone himself now,” Alya said soothingly. “This guy...I know he has at least one really great friend.”

“Like you?”

“...maybe a little better,” Alya said fondly. “I know he’d move earth to put a smile on Chat Noir’s face, so maybe let this problem fall in his lap instead of yours. You don’t have to do everything to make everyone happy all the time.”

“I want to,” Ladybug muttered.

“ Everybody includes you ,” Alya said firmly. “Take care of yourself first ; let Chat Noir take care of himself now.”

“I worry about him though,” Ladybug said quietly.

Alya glanced down at her phone, seeing a message from Nino flash on her screen.

Nino: hey babe

Nino: can’t make it tonight

Nino: adrien sounds really upset and said he wanted to talk to me about something

“Don’t." Alya smiled as she laid the phone on the bed beside her. “He’s in good hands.”

Ao3

#my writing #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #ladynoir #platonic alyanette #post-Gang of Secrets #ml spoilers

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demonicheadcanons · 4 years

Text

Obey Me Brothers + Little Affections

AN: Keep thinking about the little things each brother would do to express affection. Some warm fluffy stuff because we all need it. Enjoy!!

The hair drying one on Lucifer’s sparked this entire thing thanks

Lucifer

- Washing and drying your hair. You know if you get your hair washed at a hairdressers and they just. Go to town with a towel drying your hair? He finds it hilarious and loves doing that. You’ll hear him chuckle, unable to see him because your face is covered by the towel. He’s softer towards the end but initially when trying to get most of the excess water his only concern is not actually hurting you. He’s also genuinely trying to help, just having a little fun with it at the same time.

- Continuing on from this, Lucifer will ruffle your hair. If it doesn’t really upset you, he loves to make a mess of it, and he grins at you, your hair sticking out every which way.

- The second his brothers aren’t around, he seems to canonically love holding your hand under the guise of keeping track of you or comforting you. Its partially true - the MC gets into trouble easily, so its good to keep a hand on them. However, the comforting affect goes both ways.

- Sharing information with you implies a close bond (or at the very least, a strong curiosity, like when he hints at where Mammon’s card is / when he talks about the album) and it means Luci cares about you a lot. He likes to talk about his interests and introduce you to things he cares a lot about. A lot of the time this comes in the form of music, because it’s something he’s able to enjoy whilst still doing his work.

- Doing origami or other paper crafts together? Really relaxes him. It’s so peacefully intimate and cosy. You sit together at his desk, work documents hidden out of sight for now, and make whatever you can out of colourful little bits of paper. He likes making flowers, although he’d never say it out loud, but he makes you countless crowns with paper flowers of all different kinds. You walk in one day when he’s taking a break from work and he’s got paper cranes lining the entire length of his desk. He calls you over and puts one on your head for absolutely no reason before acting like it never happened.

- If no one else is around and he’s feeling a bit daft, he’ll sweep you up into his arms with no warning and just hold you like that, staring directly into your eyes with a daring and loving smile on his face. This happens most when it’s late at night and all the coffee he’s had is starting to wear off and he feels a little more relaxed and open. He’ll carry you to his room to cuddle, too, if you don’t have anywhere else you need to be. Just pray none of his brothers encounter you two because he’ll set you down on your feet immediately and he won’t help you up if you fall.

[[Other Brothers under the read more]]

Mammon

- Fist bumps!!! He passes you and holds his fist out, and pouts if you don’t immediately bump your hand into his. Do the snail or turkey thing once and he falls in love with it. Lucifer, tired and stressed after a lot of work, decides for once to go along with giving him a fist bump because he’s too tired and no one else is around, and Mammon does the snail thing. The look on Luci’s face is worth everything that happened after. But when its you, Mammon just smiles and beams at you. He’s really happy.

- Sitting so close together that you can’t possibly move without disturbing the other. Sides fully pressed together even if he doesn’t have an arm around you or your hand in his. He likes the constant contact, it’s healing. So heavily invested in whatever you’re watching that the two of you simply don’t realise how close you are until the episode ends and you realise you’re leaning your full weight against him and his face is red but he’s smiling so softly you can’t bring yourself to move.

- You’ll have to start the habit, but, tackle hugs. You see him in the distance somewhere and sprint over and tackle him full force. He’ll act mad at first, especially if he trips and falls over or he’d been talking with someone else, but he holds onto you tightly and his face is beautifully flushed. After a while he’ll do it too, although he’s a lot gentler, but if you hear him call your name you need to turn around quickly and hold your arms out. He’ll lift you up into the air and twirl you around once or twice before just, going on with his day as normal. You hear his laughter as he walks away, bright and bubbly and confident, exactly as he should be.

- The absence of insults is important for Mammon. He’ll tolerate it if it’s every now and then but he’ll really notice if you’re always kind to him, he pays attention and holds tightly on to every compliment you give him. When he feels low he finds you and holds you in his arms, fingers playing with the loops in your jeans, as he recites off every nice thing you’ve said to him, hoping you’ll reaffirm them. Did you mean it when you said he was one of the most caring people you’d ever met? When you said his eyes made you feel at home?

- He likes feeding the crows with you. It’s something he does without telling anyone, but one day he takes you out along with him and the crows take a liking to you instantly. He likes how you look with his crows standing proud and confident on your arm, your hair a mess from their flapping wings as you laugh and try to get the last bits of food out from the bag.

- If you style his hair and put random accessories in it - anything from silly plastic hair clips to flowers to feathers - he’ll keep them in all day. He doesn’t care who sees because his MC spent their time doing this for him, and he’s happy to tell anyone who dares criticise him.

Leviathan

- He’s awkward with any affection at first, but he actually builds up to quick tight hugs when he’s really happy. If he’s incredibly excited - just won tickets for something, or some idol liked his comments - expect to be tackled in a hug. He gets flustered after, but if you hold tightly onto him he won’t let go immediately.

- If they even vaguely relate to his own interests, Levi will try hard to be invested in anything you really enjoy. For example, he’ll watch your favourite shows with you or try and read things you enjoy, etc.

- At the same time, Levi will share his interests with you. It’s not something he can really avoid doing as it’s ingrained in him to ramble about his special interests, but it will come in seemingly smaller forms - for example, he’ll hand you his headphones one day, blushing, and ask what you think of this song, or he’ll show you a paragraph in a TSL book that has particularly good rhythm or evokes a lot of emotion. If he lends you his books or DVDs it’s practically a proposal.

- You two have full conversations with Henry as he swims about in his tank. About silly and pointless things or very serious topics, from jokingly scolding him to venting about the future and about school and such. It warms Levi’s heart.

- Horn pats. When he’s in his demon form, pull him down to your level and pat his horns. He’s so flustered he can’t move the first few times, but one day he’ll start coming up to you and asking you if you want to do it. He likes being able to be in his demon form, and likes that you’re comfortable with him even when he doesn’t look as human.

- When he’s very comfortable with you, he likes to wrap you up in surprise hugs and laughs if you try to squirm your way out of his grip, a brilliant mischievous glow in his eyes, any self-consciousness long forgotten.

Satan

- I’ve said this before on another post but Satan likes to pet your hair and run his thumbs over your palms, pressing into them gently like he’s touching the pads on the paws of a cat. He traces circles and presses kisses into your palm and over each finger tip and knuckle, like it’s his own form of worship.

- It takes a long time to build up the confidence to do so but I can see him like. Playfully nipping at your skin if he presses light kisses against your shoulders or neck. If it makes you laugh or blush he smiles against your skin.

- If you fall asleep somewhere he’s the first person to go get a blanket to throw over you - he’d rather just let you sleep if you’re somewhere safe instead of disturbing you to lift you elsewhere, and risking waking you up. Occasionally he’ll kneel down beside you and stay there with a book until you wake up, and he’s fallen asleep like that once or twice.

- Just. Talking. Laying down together and going from topic to topic, saying whatever crosses your minds with no filters and no judgement. Letting time pass by with the comfort of the other, laying on your back in the planetarium or library or in his room, wherever there aren’t books piled up. No responsibilities except to listen to the other, and every now and then you laugh and he feels like maybe this could be home.

Asmodeus

- Sharing things, whatever it is. Food, clothes, jewellery. Taking a necklace off and putting it on him because “this would go so well with your outfit,” or holding out your fork and telling him to try some of your food, it tastes heavenly. Perfume, as well, is a must - he wants the two of you to smell the same.

- Like Mammon, he likes to have some kind of contact with you at all time - holding hands, an arm across your shoulders, anything. But the main point of contact he truly adores is if he has his hands on the skin of your stomach or back, even in the most innocent way possible. If his arms are around you and you’re comfortable with it, he’ll tuck his hands under your shirt and trace shapes against your hips, stomach, back, lower ribcage. Wherever he can. It’s something he’ll do absentmindedly without everything thinking about it, and it recharges him when he’s low on energy.

- He actually really likes working alongside you, whether it’s school work or something related to a part time job, or a potential business idea. He’s smarter than anyone would give him credit for and he loves how you look when you’re deep in thought, trying to solve something, and how your eyes light up as you figure it all out. He’s not one to just give you the answer to things, so if he knows something and you don’t he likes to hint at it like it’s a game. When you guess the answer right he presses a kiss to the tip of your nose and beams at you.

- Late night phone calls where you talk about whatever’s keeping you awake. He doesn’t mind who’s calling who, he wants to ramble or listen to you at any given moment and he’ll give up his sleep if it means you can get something that’s bothering you off your chest. Similarly, there is no greater comfort for him than getting to complain to you about something or other, something that’s genuinely bothering him and that’s stuck in his head. He feels like it only disappears when you take a hold of it for him for a little bit.

Beelzebub

- Sharing food, obviously, means a lot to him. Feed him bites of your food, give him anything you don’t want, and he’ll love it. He especially loves if you share food that’s important to you in some way, and you’ll find him giving you little bites of his food too the closer you two get. It means a lot to him when people embrace the fact that he eats so much, instead of scolding him for it or making jokes about it.

- He really likes holding hands. Your hands are so small in his and yet you trust him not to injure them as you pull him along. He feels possessive sometimes but isn’t outwardly affectionate enough to do anything about it, and the last thing he wants is to make you uncomfortable. It’s the perfect thing for him.

- Stacking random things on the other. Sitting cross-legged in a park, pulling daisies out of the lawn that’s about to be mowed anyway and gently placing them into each other’s hair, on the other’s shoulders and laps. If you’re laying in his bed he’ll take random light objects off his night stand and place them on top of you. There’s no purpose and no intention, and yet it makes him smile and gives him butterflies, and he laughs if you glare jokingly up at him but let him continue.

- Run your hands through his hair, down the sides of his face, under his jaw. Anywhere. He melts in an instant, mouth slightly open as you poke his cheeks or tickle his neck and shoulders with feather light touches.

Belphegor

- Nap. On. Him. Any time, any where. Snuggle up to him, lean your head against his shoulder or bury your face into his neck or lay down on his lap and just rest. He blushes every time and it takes him a second to recover. Sometimes he’ll angle himself so he can lean against you two and he’ll fall asleep as well.

- He likes those kind of monkey hugs where you wrap your entire body around him and he can bury his face in your neck and hold on as tight as he wants. He’ll walk around like that until you get to the attic and he can throw you into his pile of pillows and blankets, and he flops down on top of you and clings onto you again, trying to hide his face because he’s smiling so wide his cheeks hurt.

- He loves playful, back and forth banter. He’ll tease you constantly, loves if you pout at him, loves it more if you retort with something and keep it running for a while before the two of you start laughing.

- Being childish. He’ll stick out his tongue at you or pull a sudden face and he expects you to do it back immediately. If you don’t he’ll poke and tickle you, telling you how disappointed and hurt he is.

- Headbumps! But not too hard. Gently bump your head against his shoulder to get his attention and he’ll pat it. Bonus points if you nuzzle into his hands then - he’s hard to fluster but you can hear him swallow as he starts to go red. You’ll immediately have all of his attention to yourself.

- Belphie is the king of silent conversations. The tiniest gestures, nods, tilts of the head. He can pick up on all of them, knows exactly what you’re trying to say without you saying it, to the point where sometimes you won’t even realise you’re not talking aloud.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me Satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #I might do more later but this is all I can think of right now #obey me headcanons #my headcanons #my writings #queued #there are little bits of angst if you squint hard enough

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no-droids · 4 years

Text

Kar’taylir

gif credit @sersi

Part Thirteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 11.8K

Warnings: language, angst and fluff, descriptions of a dead body, no real smut in this one but there is some nudity and touching, uhhh i think thats it tbh

A/N: Omg hi hi hello this was written in a week and a half so please be gentle, also I’m back on my linguistics bullshit and I can absolutely guarantee a vast majority of it is inaccurate

***

Everybody is asleep and you’re just a complete mess.

Truly. And it fucking sucks, because this should be enjoyable. This is home. You’re in hyperspace, the hull is pitch black, the baby is asleep, and Din’s breathing is slow and quiet through the darkness. Your cheek presses to his chest as it rises and falls hypnotically, you’re comfortable and safe and this would normally be a dream. But your eyes are wide open right now and you are just going through it. Spiraling in the midst of the most stable surroundings you could possibly conceive.

You suppose that this is partially your fault. You don’t know why literally any part of you expected Din would explain himself without prompting from you, but you still couldn’t work up nearly the nerve necessary to ask. Every potential question you came up with contradicted your intent, every way you tried to mentally phrase it gave off the wrong impression. How do you ask somebody if they were being serious about something without revealing anything about your own intentions? You can’t—that’s a downside of staying silent.

Din hasn’t said a single word since he urged you to leave the shooting range earlier, and he didn’t really seem like the quiet didn’t suit him, if that makes sense. Yours was awkward, it fit you wrong. You struggled for words while he easily ignored their existence altogether, able to navigate the Crest into hyperspace and exist comfortably around you without ever addressing the giant bantha in the room. Maybe that’s part of the reason you floundered so hard—he didn’t avoid you, he held the kid while you took a shower in the small fresher, and even though he was quieter around you than he’d been in awhile, he gave no indication that anything was wrong at all.

You spent that time getting clean but also formulating some sort of plan. As you bathed in actual water for the first time in a week and scrubbed your body clean, you tried to figure out at least why you were having so much trouble coming up with something to say, but even then, words evaded you. You spent the entire time staring blankly at the metal wall, at a complete fucking loss.

When you came out of the fresher with wet hair and comfortable clothing to sleep in, Din was armorless and resting in your makeshift bed on the floor, the baby tucked soundly in his crib next to him. You turned off the lights and carefully found your way under the blankets next to him in the pitch blackness, feeling him lazily reach around you and pull you to rest against his chest. His fingers gently drew circles along your arm for maybe the first few minutes while you worked up the nerve to speak. You needed to say something, this was your chance—

But then his hand soon fell to rest in one place on your shoulder and he passed out. Helmet on, not even a few minutes of your quiet breathing next to him.

So now, you’re here, just… a little ball of stress in the middle of paradise. Hours have passed, you need sleep after such a physically exhausting week but it’s like you haven’t even processed the fucking proposition he presented to you yet. You’re having trouble even thinking the words, that’s how much he’s got you fucked up.

He said… hit the target and I’ll ma…. hit the target and I’ll marrrrr…

Fuck. You stay on that loop for ages until your eyes begin to grow heavy, until you just settle on thinking about it with them closed. Slow breaths from Din under one ear, the silence of hyperspace all around you—how are you supposed to contemplate when his body is so warm? No, you can ask tomorrow, you’ll ask him tomorrow.

Eventually, you’re able to drift off into a troubled slumber, dreaming of bells made of beskar that deafen anyone who rings them.

***

You wake up what feels like two minutes later.

It’s not, but you don’t know that. You’re so warm and the second your eyes open, they start stinging and burning and tearing up like your body just wants to cry for even being awake right now. You finally got to sleep—you moan pitifully and start to turn your head further into the warm blankets, but then a gloved hand smooths your hair back and a voice whispers quiet through the darkness.

“I have to go.”

And oh, his touch is just the gentlest thing, but what he says makes your already fragile mental state want to shatter. The first words he gives you in hours and they’re the ones you loathe to hear the most.

“W-Wha? No,” you whimper and automatically reach for him, your throat starting to close up. Maker, you’re so tired, you’re so tired, you feel so fucking emotional and vulnerable right now and you’re not even awake enough to realize it. “Why?”

Din just catches your hands and brings both of them together in front of him, slowly pressing your knuckles to the cold beskar on the face of his helmet.

“I meet with Karga in three days,” he murmurs back, voice pillow-soft and barely loud enough to come through the steel under your fingers. It’s gentle and lulling and it makes you want to sleep again, but you can’t and you feel like you could burst into tears for that reason alone. “He gave me four pucks, I need four bodies.”

You can’t argue with it, the logic is perfectly sound. But you still want to, and everything inside you revolts at the thought of allowing him leave like this without fighting for more. Which means you have absolutely nothing reasonable or compelling to say to appeal to him; all you’re left with the glaring truth.

“But I don’t want you to leave,” you whisper, tightening your fingers.

And, perhaps if you were even half-conscious, you’d wince. You’d cringe at the shake in your voice, you’d remind yourself that he has to make a living, he’s said it over and over again. If you were completely awake, you’d scold yourself for being such a needy mess, but right now, all you can think about is how much you want him to stay, just this once.

After a moment, you feel the gloves carefully collect both of your hands into just one of his, and then he slowly reaches out with his free hand to cradle your jaw.

“I won’t be gone long,” Din murmurs. “I can’t be.”

Your head turns slowly in his palm, and you’re just so, so sleepy. Your voice is small and your words slur. “Stay with me.”

Quiet, and though you can’t see him, the leather continues to press so warm to your cheek. Your eyes slowly drift shut, needing him to stay exactly like this, stay right here just like this. Karga can wait, the quarry can wait, the galaxy can wait—everything else can wait when things are like this, when he’s looking down at you breathing slow into his palm.

You’re almost asleep again when you hear him say something.

But… you have no idea what he says. You hear it. You hear his voice come through the pitch black, quiet enough to sit just on top of the silence and let the mysterious words simply become a part of it, but it’s strange. Like his cadence lilts in a different way, the vowels are longer than what you’re used to, and your comprehension abruptly falters like it would if he was speaking another language altogether.

Maybe it’s just because it’s the first thing to pull you back from the edges of sleep, that has to be right. It doesn’t sound like Basic because your mind is stupid and slow right now. You need to ask him to repeat himself, but all that you can muster is the soft sound of confusion, not even able to open your eyes anymore.

His hands pull away from you and once again, you suddenly can’t decide between sleep and crying, quickly lifting and trying to reach out for him in the darkness. You can’t feel anything, it’s like he’s completely disappeared from where you assumed he’d be, except then something tiny is placed into your hands instead and it makes an unhappy little sound at being disturbed. You automatically hold the baby close to your chest and strong hands touch your shoulders, urging you to lay back down again.

“Leave the engine running, you’ll freeze if you don’t,” he mutters, quickly tucking the blankets up under your body while you close your eyes and feel the tears wet your lashes. Fuck, you’re so exhausted, you just need to sleep. “If I’m not back in sixteen hours, I’ll use my e-comm and you’ll have to fly out to me.”

He steps away from you, walks quickly and with purpose to the side of the hull, and a blast of frigid air fills the room before the door is slammed shut behind him.

***

Your head hurts.

Sparks and wires give your fingers mean, zapping reminders to pay attention every time your focus slips, but you still feel like you’re in a daze.

“Come on,” you drone, trying to use your voice to snap yourself back into the present, but the sound of it isn’t even interesting enough to pull you away. “Come on.”

Maker, you’re going fucking crazy. Is this just all an elaborate scheme to make you experience the same kind of insanity he told you he struggles with in your absence? Because you don’t like this—you hate feeling like this, you can’t concentrate on anything and even if he hadn’t instructed you to do so, you’d likely still be counting the hours of his absence.

Fourteen have passed so far, not the sixteen you’re waiting for but getting close. It’s one thing you’ve been able to accomplish. Counting. You can still count right now, so at least there’s that.

Oh, and another hoop you’ve jumped through. Understanding words. You can listen and repeat, even if you still can’t fully comprehend, but you’re getting there.

Din said… hit the target and I’ll marry you.

He said that. Yep. You’ve accepted it, you’ve accepted the words that were said. Indeed.

Okay, but now… like…

What did he mean by that? Why did he say that?

No matter how much you tell yourself he was just messing around—no matter how many times you offer up that perfectly logical answer to the burning question you’ve been sitting on, you still aren’t satisfied with it. Something keeps tugging your mind back to it, a tether constantly pulling you away from the work that’s designed to be your distraction.

You frown down at the box of machinery. Whelp, if he was serious, he’d probably immediately take the offer back after witnessing your behavior this morning. You embarrassed yourself terribly, you acted like a clingy baby in the looming shadow of unconsciousness and what’s worse, you can’t even remember what he said after you begged him to stay. It could’ve been a quiet, “Stars, pull yourself together,” for all you know.

And honestly, just… fuck these electronics. You’re at the point where you’d probably cheer on whatever brutal impact damaged them so atrociously if you weren’t also well aware that this box was very likely attached to Din’s chest when it was crushed. The magnetics are a complete mess, and you’re mostly just attempting to see how the individual components of each piece are supposed to communicate. Turning the switch on doesn’t do much at all besides make the capacitors put out heat. Not enough to shut it down or be a hazard to the housing when you close it, but enough to know that it’s going to present a problem for you at some point.

What’s more, you’re so lost in your own thoughts and busywork that you don’t see two green ears poking out over the top of the pile of armor on your temporary workstation (literally just the floor) until one of the thigh braces comes clattering down and the whole thing collapses with a ruckus.

You suddenly shove the metal box away from you in frustration and you reach for the little troublemaker with a sigh, scooping him up and getting to your feet.

“This isn’t going to work,” you grunt to him, hearing your words better for some reason when you direct them at the baby instead of talking to yourself, and his eh? allows the thoughts to come clearer and easier. No, you can’t be distracted when your distraction is just another part of your status quo, you can’t use fixing mechanics to occupy yourself because it’s what you’ve done to occupy yourself your entire life, it’s worn off at this point. You need something newer. Something that takes your entire focus to do.

Eventually, your eyes drift over to the one metal panel on the wall that you’ve rarely ever opened. One that takes up a comparatively enormous amount of space in the hull considering what you know it holds. You eye the kid in your arm, who suddenly has sneaky painted all over his expression. “You thinking what I’m thinking, demon?”

He squeaks his affirmative and you move over to the armory, pressing a few buttons before the doors slide open by themselves. Because of course Mando invested in hydraulics for the gun closet but not for the hidden cot he used to sleep on, of course.

“Maker above,” you groan as the metal slides open, needing to lift your chin to eye the enormous collection. How many fucking…? All this for just one person? What does that big one in the middle do that the others stacked strategically around it don’t? They all kill whatever you point and shoot at, you’re assuming? Are you missing something?

The baby makes a tiny sound of awe as you carefully look over your choices, not expecting nearly this many to be offered, before settling on one that looks the simplest. A sleek silver one that’s still too big for your hand but smaller than anything else on the rack.

Grabby fingers reach out for the shiny metal as soon as you remove it from the shelf and you very purposefully set it down out of his pitiful wingspan. “Nope. Now come on, gotta bundle up.”

You make your way back over to the bed and pull one of the thickest blankets up, settling it over the open shield and then situating your partner in crime in his usual spot inside. You strategically stuff and stack the fabric around him to make sure he’ll be warm enough in what you know has to be far below freezing temperatures, lifting it up over his ears and wrapping it around his neck in a loose hood. He blinks up at you with gigantic eyes and an open mouth, clearly thrilled about your willingness to go on an adventure with him this time instead of being the tall nuisance that consistently holds him back from one, and you scoff down at him as you partially close the lid on his levitating nest of blankets for extra protection. He should be warm enough, you’re not going to be outside long.

And then you pull out nearly half the amount of clothes you own and suit up in what feels like ten layers before grabbing the blaster. The swirling wind nearly shoves the heavy hull door into you as soon as you open it and—Maker.

You look back at the kid behind you for a second, wondering if it’s too late to change your mind. His expression narrows and he makes a triumphant ha! while pointing three fingers at the grey blizzard through the small open space in his crib. Try as you might, you can’t ignore a call to arms when delivered with such ferocity.

Both of you step outside and take in the view after you wrestle with the door to haul it shut. You don’t know the name of this planet but from what you can see, it’s one giant ice ball, mountainous and cold as fuck. Though, to be honest, your only indication that it’s truly cold as fuck is the continuously accumulating snow blanketing the landscape and the flurries dancing in the whipping wind. You’re too warm-blooded for climates like these—anything below room temperature and you’re freezing, you have absolutely no tolerance for cold whatsoever.

Keeping that in mind, you don’t travel far at all. Just a few steps beyond the entrance to your shelter before eyeing what appears to be a large white boulder in the distance. There’s a solid target, you figure—you’ll be able to see chunks splintering off when you hit it and the ice isn’t strong enough to bounce plasma back, you won’t have any ricochets.

Okay. Okay—safety, where’s the safety on this one? Ah, yes, okay—safety, off. Stance, find your stance. There it is. Alright, now lift. Lift, get that stupid frozen ball right in your sights, line it up. Hold. Hold. Hold.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale—

Fire.

You watch with bated breath as the bright red bolt launches from the end of the barrel and travels across the distance before melting a hole in the snow just to the right of your target.

“Mother fucker!” You yell into the frigid landscape without warning, suddenly infuriated. What’s the point of even having a sight if every gun is just gonna say fuck you no matter what? Could there be some sort of mathematical reason why you seem to be fucking atrocious at this, you wonder? Are you fucking up the angle somehow while trying to read the scope? Should you just ignore it and try to aim without thinking too hard?

Admittedly, you spend the next five minutes shooting at that stupid fucking thing, not making a single shot. It’s not been long at all, but your entire body is already trembling uncontrollably and it is just too fucking cold out here. Freezing your fucking ass off isn’t going to help your aim of course, but it’s almost just tragic at this point. Either you’ve got to accept that you’re just absolutely hopeless at this, or you’ve got to… blame the little womprat behind you for messing up your shots, yeah. It wouldn't surprise you.

As a last ditch effort, you consider trying something a bit ridiculous to see if he really is fucking with you.

“I’m firing one last shot,” you call out loudly over the sound of the bristling wind and flurries, making sure he can hear your narration from his little blanket cave behind you. “If I hit the target… I will present our demon overlord with a chunk of raw meat later for dinner.”

You give the offer a moment to sink in before raising the blaster, and then you jerk it up at the very last second while pulling the trigger. The arc of plasma quickly disappears into the gloomy skies over the top of the ice boulder, completely straight.

You switch the safety on and turn around to say something smart to him, but… well. Uh. That’s an empty crib.

Sudden panic rips through you at the sight of the wide open shield, the blanket left abandoned inside. Your head whips around in horror, wondering where the fuck he could’ve gone—but then you’re able to spot tiny footprints in the snow. Your eyes quickly follow them up and see the baby wading his way up a large hill, slow against the terrain and trying in vain to get to something at the very top.

You drop the blaster and bolt through the blizzard to get to him while calling out through the freezing air and wishing, not for the first time, that you had a name to roar and strike fear into his tiny little heart. In this case, you prefer a middle name as well.

Finally reaching him and yanking him up from the snow, you tuck him under the warmest part of your arm and open your mouth to start venting the terror from your body, but he makes a distressed noise and starts climbing. You fumble with him on your way back down, not expecting that response, but he’s so distraught and preoccupied that he’s unable to stay still, trying to find different ways of escaping your grasp and making more and more sounds to indicate something is wrong.

“What the fuck are you—” you stuff him into the shield and at least get the blankets wrapped around him before looking back and trying to spot whatever he’s still wiggling and attempting to get to. Frustrated cries start filling the icy air and… okay. “Okay,” you tell him, your breath puffing like smoke in front of you, “okay okay, we can go look, but you need to stay warm.”

You clutch the edge of his metal shield and urge it to follow you back up the snowy hill, feeling the crunch of your feet disappear further and further into it as you climb. Your outer two layers are probably soaked by now—stars, it’s so fucking cold. You know you’re not exactly the best judge, but you’ve been outside less than five minutes and you’re already worried about getting sick or frostbite, already jumpy and wanting to go back to the warmth of the hull.

But as you reach the top and look out in the distance, you can just barely make out a familiar metallic glint on the horizon.

Your heart picks up, but the baby makes another distressed sound. Not… happy, not thrilled that his dad is coming back. Some strange sort of dread begins to fill you, carefully holding the kid in his shield with one hand and looking at the bright reflection of light a little ways away just to make sure it’s…

No, it’s not moving. Not disappearing and reappearing, not catching the sunlight differently. Completely stationary in this absolutely horrendous weather.

You immediately make your way in that direction, your body deciding to outright abandon its trembling in the wake of this newfound worry. You’re suddenly sweating, way too warm. That’s Din, you recognize the glint of his armor anywhere, but why isn’t he moving?

The closer you get, the faster you move and the more you’re able to see. He’s laying facedown in the snow. There’s quite a bit of it covering the back of his cape, maybe a few inches, and… there’s also someone laying equally as lifeless behind him. Your heart is slamming now, you’re doing your best to run in the unforgiving terrain, and you finally see that it’s… a corpse, a frozen corpse is behind him with a rope tied around its ankles, clutched tight in Din’s unmoving fist as it lays against the pure white backdrop.

“Mando?” You call out, dropping to your knees as soon as you reach him. “Hey—hey, can you hear me?”

The beskar strapped to him is frozen over and feels colder than ice when you try to shake him. He doesn’t respond. He’s dead weight; you do your best to turn him over on his back, but you still get nothing from him. You shove your trembling fingers up under the helmet, and the only reassurance you have that he’s even alive comes from the petrifyingly slow pulse beating underneath. His skin is ice cold.

Shit, he’s still breathing but he’s hypothermic, you have to get him back to the Crest right fucking now.

You fumble to get in position above his head while hooking both your arms under his, before leaning everything you have into it—but fuck, he’s so heavy. You can barely lift him even just a few inches off the ground—the snow is deep, his armor makes him weigh a ton and the fabric wrapped around him is sopping wet. You try again, making a tight sound in your throat while you haul, but it’s no use.

“Fuck,” you curse, starting to panic even fucking harder. You’re gasping and breathless and getting dizzy and scared, continuing to try and find different angles to heave—

—until suddenly the burden is lifted.

You nearly fall backwards on your ass at the abrupt removal of tension, playing tug-of-war with a team that decided to give up with no warning. But it’s like it almost doesn’t even phase you; you don’t even look behind you to see the baby’s eyes closed tight in concentration, you just recover and pull with both arms, feeling Din’s body gliding easily along the snow now and leading him all the way back down the hill.

Once you get inside the Crest and shut the door to the raging blizzard behind the three of you, there’s an extended moment where you just… you don’t know what to do. You know all about how to deal with heatstroke, but this is the opposite—he either spent too long in the cold, or he exhausted himself trying to get back too quickly and then spent too long in the cold. He said he’d use his e-comm if he wasn’t back in sixteen hours—was that the cutoff? The point where the temperature outside would shut his body down and he’d need you to come get him?

Regardless, you need to warm him up. Yes, that’s your priority, and you figure the quickest and safest way to accomplish it has to be the shower in slow increments. The kid helps you move Din into the tiny fresher in the hull and then you sit on the floor with him, holding his limp body to your chest while reaching up to turn the faucet on.

Cold water sprays down and then suddenly—oof, he’s heavier than fuck again. Air leaves your lungs and your neck cranes back under the unexpected increase in pressure on top of you to see the kid climbing down from his shield, no longer focused on mentally bearing most of his father’s weight or directing his own hovering form of transportation along behind you. The baby disappears out of sight and you huff, completely trapped under Din as freezing water rains down on you.

Fuck, it’s so cold. It’s way too fucking cold for you, but your core body temperature is also mostly normal right now. Din’s isn’t, you’ll probably shock his system if you try to warm him up too quickly. So you reach up and twist the knob, keeping it at a temperature he’d probably find just the slightest bit warm while inspiring violent shudders from you.

“H-Hey, I’m gonna t-t-take this off, o-okay—” you stutter down at him, knowing damn well he isn’t conscious to hear you but giving him that reassurance on the small chance he is, and then reach with trembling fingers to work at his armor. You worry that the beskar is keeping the cold trapped the same way his clothes are, like having solid pieces of ice strapped to his body and nothing to protect him besides a few layers of soaking wet fabric.

The chestpiece comes off and you throw it blindly over your shoulder into the hull with a clang—admittedly, without thinking about where the baby is at all anymore. The pauldrons come off next, but not before you reach up and turn the heat up just the slightest bit. Your jerky limbs just want to blast it and remove the rest of his clothes in steamy hot water, but you can’t. Even though your mind is hurtling at a thousand lightyears an hour, whatever reason you have left reminds you that you have to be patient or risk losing him entirely.

Eventually you’re able to get all the armor off but you hate the way he’s breathing right now. Slow and shallow, like he just doesn’t really need the air at all but his body is still fighting for it on instinct. His chest barely moves with it even when it’s got nothing weighing it down.

“You’ll b-be okay,” you say aloud, talking to the both of you even though only one is capable of responding. “Y-Y-You’ll be o-okay—”

You reach up to inch the temperature a little higher, shivering terribly now. His body feels slightly warmer under the shower than it did with the beskar, but you know you need to keep going and take the fabric off now. Maker, it’s nearly impossible—the black clothing clings to his skin and its such a small space to maneuver, but it gives your mind and hands a clear goal to focus on while the water incrementally heats up.

Strangely, your adrenaline has been rocketing for so long that you almost lose track of time. You just keep deadly focused on your task of undressing him and slowly heating the shower, trying not to think, trying not to get in your head and bring about disaster in such a crucial set of moments.

At some point, the water is warm. Comfortably warm, and Din’s body isn’t ice cold anymore. It’s warm, too, laying back into your chest and naked besides the helmet, but he’s still not moving. No response, no matter how much mindless drabble you supply, no matter how steamy and hot the shower has become, no matter how much your own body has heated up. Your fingers have found their home under his jaw, pressed right to his pulse point and feeling it continue to beat slow and faint, but you’re starting to feel the terror set in. Real terror, the kind that makes you stupid and emotional, the kind that turns you back into a child again.

“I don’t know if it’s working,” you suddenly choke out, close to tears. He’s warm, what else can you do for him? Why is he not waking up? “I-I don’t know what to do, Din, I…”

No—no, you cannot lose your shit, not yet. You will exhaust every fucking option before you let that fear set in. He’s not waking up because he needs to recover, his body needs time to work things out in a warm, comfortable environment. He’s breathing, his heart is beating, he’s warm, and he’s still with you, so… you need to still be with him.

You turn the water off and clumsily get up, grabbing him under the arms and hauling him back into the hull. He’s still heavy but it’s so much easier than before to move him; there’s no armor weighing him down anymore besides the helmet, no cape or snow or friction to catch him, no cold to lock your muscles up. It’s slow going but you’re finally able to settle him in the warmth of your shared bed and then cover his body in the collection of blankets you’ve amassed. You stand up and peel off all your wet layers of clothing, letting them plop to the metal floor while glancing around for the kid—

—who is currently swinging from the ladder to the cockpit with one hand.

It startles you for just a moment, just long enough for you to wonder what the fuck he thinks he’s doing up there, but then you figure that if he found some way to get up there then he can surely find his way back down again.

As you quickly drop to the bed and scoot up next to Din’s limp body under the blankets, the Crest’s engine suddenly gives a low rumble below the floor and heat starts blowing through the hull vents. Again, you’re too preoccupied to even notice the gift much. You’re tugging and tucking blankets around him and up under the metallic edge of his helmet when...

Maker, you need to take this off. If the inside is wet, it’s probably keeping his head cold while the rest of him is warm from the shower. You know it’s not a light thing—you know… you know at least a fraction of what this means. You won’t look, you won’t look unless something absolutely drastic happens and it’s completely unavoidable, but you need to take his helmet off.

You catch the shoulder furthest from you and tug at his heavy body until he’s on his side, facing you on the bed.

“Din, I have to take your helmet off,” you warn him, saying it slowly and clearly. Again, just in case. “I’m not gonna look. Nobody is gonna look—” your gaze flicks behind him to eye the baby, who is now somehow on the metal ground and waddling up to you both. He blinks enormous black eyes at you, looking between you and his father huddled together under the blankets.

“Close your eyes,” you tell him very seriously, no room for negotiating. “I know you understand me.”

It takes just a few seconds before he lifts his hands up and does exactly what you say, placing his fingers over his closed eyelids and then even so much as toddling around to face the wall. You gasp in relief, clenching your eyes firmly shut and then pulling the helmet up, making sure you catch his head before it falls with one hand while tossing the beskar somewhere in the hull with the other.

Cold. His hair is soaking wet and so cold, and his head rolls slightly as you guide it to rest in the warmest part of your neck. Your hand stays attached to the back of it, wanting to transfer every single bit of warmth from your palm to him, and your eyes open to the kid’s back as your other arm wraps around Din’s bare spine.

And then all at once, you just feel… helpless. He’s in your arms but Maker, you don’t know what else you can do. The heat is blasting, you’re warm and pressed against him under multiple blankets, the engine is slowly heating the metal floor, but his breathing. Slow. Shallow. Barely able to be felt against your neck. He’s here but he’s not. And you have no way of knowing if he’s getting closer or further away from you.

Tears start coming before you even realize. But you have nothing to say. After spending the entire time talking out loud, providing reassurances, narrating, distracting yourself—you don’t have anything anymore. The silence twists you tighter, the nothing becomes inescapable, and the sudden sob that leaves you echoes hauntingly throughout the hull. You pull his limp body as close to you as possible for comfort. Wake up. Wake up.

Your vision is watery—you don’t see it. You don’t see the kid slowly turn around and take a few steps forward. You only notice he’s there when green catches in the abstract blur, but you sniff and blink quickly to clear it. It only takes a second to see the baby’s hand, extending and pressing against the blanket covering Din’s back, and you watch with wide eyes as he closes his.

And then there’s a second. A second where you dare to hope. Where you wonder if it’s even something that can be done.

The kid lowers his hand just a moment later and stumbles back a few steps, before plopping down on the ground and slowly falling backwards. You have just enough time to see his little body inhale and exhale a few times as he sleeps, and then—

—and then Din suddenly jolts in your arms, bursting with too much life after spending too many heart wrenching moments without it.

“Shhh,” you breathe, instantly tightening your grip on the back of his head so he doesn’t pull away from you in a panic and keeping it tucked into the warmest part of your neck, right where your pulse thrums fast and present. Your eyes clench tightly shut just in case and your heart bursts with pure, blinding, heavenly relief. “Shhh sh sh, stay right here, just stay right here…”

As soon as he seems to recognize your voice and figure out that he’s not dead, his body immediately starts wreaking with shivers. You squeeze him tight to you, feeling his large, quaking frame curl inwards into you for warmth, burying his own face into your neck even further and breathing shallow but quickly now, like his body actually wants the air again. You do your best to will your blood to pump faster and provide him that relief, stretching and opening your body as much as possible to give him warmth.

And then you spend the next few hours like that. Holding him, murmuring gently to him, providing him with your body heat and stars, he fucking clings to you. He presses tight to you and trembles, and you don’t even know if he’s listening, but you keep talking. Finding words for hours, and while some of them are just different ways of saying the same thing, you say them anyway.

He’s okay. The kid is okay. Everyone is okay.

Eventually, the shivering dies down until it stops altogether. Din stays in one place and goes completely limp again, but this time he continues to breathe you in, slow and deep into the crook of your neck. Fast asleep in your arms, and you thank the good fucking Maker above for the little angel passed out on the floor behind him.

***

He has to meet with Karga in two days.

After a few more hours of holding him and making absolutely sure he’s going to be alright, that’s all you can stupidly think about.

A deadline. A very quickly approaching one.

You don’t know why. But it might have something to do with the fact that you want nothing more than to climb up into the cockpit and navigate the ship off this horrid planet, and you can’t. You’re confident that the hull and blankets are warm enough by themselves to keep Din comfortable as he recovers, and you’ve also had quite a while to regroup and get your mind thinking logically again, so you’re not worried about getting up and leaving him right now, no. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that there’s a corpse outside. You know this. You know it’s there, and you know he needs it. Nobody’s gonna take his word for just saying they’re dead, much less pay him for his services; no body, no bounty. You also know it’s probably being covered with fresh snow right now, or maybe some sort of wild animal has already gotten their teeth into it, if anything can even survive out there. And you’re the only one awake. The only one capable of going to get it.

You’ve been arguing with yourself. For about an hour, you’ve been struggling with the thought. Din is soft and warm and every breath makes you focus less on the terrifying moments that occurred and more on the need to step up once again.

In the end, it’s the kid who gives you the final push. You’re not going to leave him laying on the floor like that for any longer. Not after what he did.

You take a second, grabbing the blanket and pulling it up all the way over Din’s head as it rests warm and comfortable in your neck. You’re incredibly careful to cover his face, and even while climbing out of the warm cocoon of the bed, you keep your eyes firmly shut and continue to pull the fabric even higher, making absolutely sure you’re not going to see his face on accident. You shouldn’t, you don’t think, as long as he doesn’t jerk awake and pull it down himself, but you want to take extra precaution regardless.

After quickly yanking on some clothes, you immediately make your way over to the kid and pick him up, seeing his little mouth open as he snores—and oh, you just have to. You pull him to your chest and give him the most heartfelt, thankful embrace you can while not squishing him, before setting him down in his much more comfortable hovering blanket palace and closing the lid on it.

You know you have a very clear task now, but for just a few moments longer, you do your best to stall despite the ticking clock. You start to pick up the mess in the hull—you close the fresher door, pick up Din’s discarded armor and set it in a neat pile close to the bed, place the helmet under the vent to encourage the padding inside to dry faster, and then you collect his old armor and stuff it back into one of the storage cubbies with your toolbox.

Only, an idea suddenly occurs to you as you’re putting away the chestpiece. When you open the door to the hull, you know that a blast of cold air is going to flood the ship. The engine is still heating everything inside and making sure you don’t get trapped in the snow by continuously melting it on the outside, but you don’t want Din to start shivering again.

So you grab the dented piece of electronics you were working on and flip the power switch, feeling the capacitors slowly start to heat up inside the housing. You go back over and lift the blanket near his feet just enough to tuck the metal under it, close enough to Din that he’ll feel the same amount of warmth your body was providing him but not enough to overheat.

And then you make your way over to your bag and pull on the rest of your clothes, now exhausting almost every single clean thing you own just to make another trek through the snow. You’re in the middle of pulling on your fifth pair of pants when the thought truly sinks in.

A corpse. A dead body. That you’re actually considering going out into the worst fucking weather in the galaxy to search for, haul back to the ship, and put into carbonite. Because of a fucking deadline for an occupation very much not your own, very much not chosen by you.

You quickly walk over and leave through the door on the side of the hull before you can change your mind, slamming it shut behind you.

***

Well, it’s… It’s not too terrible, you guess.

It’s been frozen out here for hours, that’s why. It’s not bloody, not gory, not demented or malformed in any way. Tranquil almost, like the creature died in its sleep in this nightmarish landscape, perfectly at peace.

You still don’t want to get anywhere close to it, but you have to. You pull a face and slowly reach out, absolutely not thinking about the literal impossibility of it playing dead and just waiting for the moment to strike, but even still… Even if there was nothing more sinister hiding underneath the surface of this scene, it’s still… existentially fucked up. The last time you were confronted with a dead body, Din had to be the one to dispose of it—you couldn’t even think about it without threatening another wave of shock to your system.

And now you’re voluntarily grabbing the rope around one’s ankles and dragging it back down the pure white slope to the Razor Crest.

It doesn’t weigh that much and its icy exterior seems to work in your favor; it slides easily along the snow as soon as you get it moving. As the ship comes back into view, you hurry to the door and you’re just about to open it when you suddenly get the feeling that you’re forgetting something…

Oh—

It takes a few moments of searching around in the freshly fallen snow, but eventually your fingers brush metal underneath and you stand, reaching behind you to tuck the blaster into your waistband. When you’re positive you’re not going to accidentally shoot a chunk of your ass off on accident, you shove open the door and pull the body inside, before locking it tight behind you and keeping the frigid winter from touching this warm, quiet safe-haven.

There. Halfway done. You almost don’t want to look in case he wakes up unexpectedly, but then you find yourself peeking over your shoulder at the silhouette of Din’s body still passed out under the blankets and you’re thankful the squeaks and slams didn’t disturb him.

And then you take just a second to wonder if this is what it must be like for him. Minus your obvious discomfort and ickiness at beginning to haul the corpse over to the carbonite chamber, it seems like it’d be reminiscent of any other time he’s brought back a dead quarry while you and the baby slept soundly. Trying to be quiet, wanting it done and over with just to get back in bed that much faster, doing everything you can to prevent anything out there from so much as breathing on anything in here.

You do your best to hold on to the loveliness of the thought, because this part is the part you’re most anxious about.

The body needs to go into this slanted upright space so you can freeze it in carbonite. And in order to do that, you have to grab it and put it there. With your hands, you have to grab it. With your hands.

You look down at its face, calm and at peace, frozen and forever etched into that expression, and something twists in your heart. If it weren’t for the kid, that could’ve been Din. If it weren’t for the kid walking barefoot through snow, fighting an uphill battle to make sure you get to him, helping you drag him back here and then overexerting himself to make sure he’d be okay, that could’ve been Din. He drives you crazy on a consistent basis, but he came through today.

Know what? If that little squirt can save a grown man’s life twice in a few hours, then the least you can do is finish this job for all three of you and fly your asses out of here.

Weirdly enough, being frozen solid allows for way better handling than the alternative. It means you don’t actually have to touch it too much; you don’t have to deal with the limpness of death, it doesn’t seem as much like a person as it does a rigid board you’re simply moving from one place to another. You can just grab the shoulders and yank and the entire fucking thing goes with it, solid and upright, naturally wanting to lean back into the chamber so you don’t even have to hold it in place. The perfect quarry for you basically, day one stuff, as easy as it could get.

Almost done, almost done—you study the key panel on the upper-right frame before eventually pressing a few buttons, and then you step back as gas freezes and solidifies the corpse in its carbonite prison.

Yes. You’re done. You already want to take another shower just from touching it for a few seconds, but that can wait. Quickly making your way up the ladder and into the cockpit, you fire up the thrusters and then navigate the ship through and beyond the swirling white atmosphere of this dreadful fucking planet, before punching in familiar coordinates to Nevarro.

***

“Din,” you murmur, making sure you have your eyes completely covered with one hand before gently easing the blanket down from his face with the other. “Din, I want you to drink some wat—”

He jerks awake so suddenly that you hear the metal canteen fall over on the floor next to you, thank the Maker its lid is on tight. You automatically reach out to steady him, pressing your free hand to his bare chest and continuing to speak calmly and gently to reassure him, but he still scrambles to take in his surroundings after sleeping longer than he probably has in weeks.

You know what he’s seeing, even though you’re blind right now. You took time to make sure everything was settled before waking him. The hull is clean with only a single light to illuminate it, the baby is still snoozing in his closed crib, his armor is stacked in a neat pile, the blaster is put away, and you retired your makeshift blanket heater box so the only thing left is you. Freshly showered, hair dripping, offering him water, and dressed in just a thin shirt with nothing else (you ran out of things to wear).

“Wh-Where’s my h-h-helmet—” is the first thing he asks, voice broken and raspy. Stars, he needs water.

“The padding inside is wet,” you quickly supply, keeping your hand tight over the bridge of your eyes to make sure his freshly conscious mind immediately understands that you have no bad intentions. “I swear I didn’t look, and I made sure the kid didn’t either. He’s sleeping now, it’s just me—I swear nobody looked, I swear.”

You might just be saying the exact same thing over and over again and admittedly, that might be putting some weird kind of suspicion on you, but you just want to make sure he knows. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. It’s important that he knows he’s safe and that everything is okay now, even if he collapsed and spent an unknown amount of time in a purgatory where nothing was.

His body trembles under your palm, waves of shudders attacking him even after hours of keeping him as warm as possible. “Are—Are we st-still on H-Ho—H-Hoth—”

“No,” you answer. “We’re in hyperspace. Everything’s okay now, I took care of it. We’ll get to Nevarro on time.”

It’s like he takes just a few extra moments, as if he’s trying extra hard to remember before responding. “But—I d-didn’t—”

“You have four bodies for Karga,” you tell him, not letting him get too lost trying to recall something that no longer poses an issue. “I took care of it. You need rest, I only woke you up to make sure you drink some water, so please—” you blindly reach your hand out for the canteen you know has to be around here somewhere, but all you feel is…

His. Catching yours.

“Y-You took c-c-care of…” His hands are trembling harder than his voice. “Sh-shit, I’m freezing, I—”

“Drink some water,” you tell him, squeezing his fingers. “I’ll go turn off the light so you can sleep more, but you need water.”

His hand feels like it doesn’t quite want to let go of yours yet, but eventually it does and you hear the sloshing of water as the metal flask is picked up with an unsteady grip. Purposefully turning your back to him and making sure he’s not in your line of sight whatsoever, you finally let your hand drop and blink your eyes open at the wall across the hull. You hear Din shakily unscrew the lid while you stand up and find the light switch, before turning around in the pitch blackness and using his loud gulps as your guide back.

Your hands and knees are barely on the blanket when you hear him toss the empty canteen to the side and grab you, pulling you down to him.

Fuck, you’re not expecting it. You fumble in the dark but he doesn’t really give your clumsiness much of a choice—Din pulls you under the blankets like he needs you, his body craving that warmth even though his skin doesn’t feel cold at all. He hooks a strong forearm around your tummy, keeping your back pressed tight to his chest while the rest of him curls to fit every part of you, and you have to adjust the blankets yourself.

It’s not even a few seconds after you settle into position when his trembling hands jerk down to grab your shirt and yank it up. You quickly scramble to help him get you as naked as he is, feeling his palms drag greedily across the heat of your tummy and breasts before you’ve even finished wiggling the fabric over your head. The shirt lands somewhere in the darkness and you’re squeezed back against him, your hands landing on his forearms as they wrap around your waist and he clings shamelessly to you.

“You…” Din’s body still shivers every once in a while but the heat and closeness allows his voice to even out just a bit. He clears his throat and swallows, tucking his head and burying his face in your hair before trying again. “You brought back the qu-quarry?”

“Yes,” you confirm, confident in your reassurance but gentle at the same time. “It’s in carbonite.”

All you can feel or hear in response is his breathing. His heart beating steady and strong against your back.

And then Din’s arms suddenly squeeze you tight—tight. He lets out a low shaky exhale against the back of your shoulder and presses his lips to your skin. “Sweet girl.”

And he says just… so much with those two words. Slow and purposeful, the steadiest thing you’ve heard from him in hours. But the two biggest competing emotions you hear tugging at his vocal cords are gratitude and apprehension. Like he already knows that it couldn’t have been easy for you. Like he’s not taking it lightly.

You don’t want to talk about it. You don’t want to talk about anything that happened in the past few hours, not right now. “It’s okay. Please.”

This time his silence seems to be on the brink, as if he wants to say more but the extra plea you put on the end makes him hold onto his words, at least for now.

“How d-did you find me?” He asks instead, scooting his legs up enough that yours actually go with him. Cradled in his naked body, radiating heat so he can recover, pressed so close to him that you feel like gravity itself would be pushing you into his lap if the world weren’t sideways.

“The kid,” you tell him. “We were goofing around outside and he dragged me ov—”

It’s like he’s still so cold that even just the surprise of hearing you say that makes his whole body lock down and convulse a few times against your back. “You were wh-what?”

“I was practicing,” you openly admit to him, feeling like the earlier events already occurred a lifetime ago and you have no reason for being shy about it anymore. In fact, you’re glad you were there, being terrible at shooting. The alternative is unthinkable. Though, something tells you also improbable, having a little supernatural sidekick who cares so deeply for him. “I raided your armory. We weren’t outside for more than five minutes before I wanted to go back in, but then he found you.”

And you think he’s going to get after you, for some reason. Seems about on par, you figure—going outside for even just a few minutes on a planet whose name you now remember is colloquial slang for hell, even if it’s the only reason he’s not an icicle right now.

But he’s just quiet. Breathing. So you just relax into him, thinking that’s the end of it. You take a few deep breaths in through your nose and just… rest. In the near perfect silence of hyperspace you used to find haunting, but now only find comfort in. It reminds you of him.

“Did you hit the target?” He asks you quietly, and at first you scoff, about to ask if he’s kidding. No, of course you didn’t hit the…

Only, after a remarkable delay, hearing him phrase it that way suddenly makes your stomach decide to drop and do a fucking somersault on the ground out of absolutely nowhere.

Everything comes flooding back. The conflict you used to think was the most pressing thing, the one that kept you awake and your thoughts scrambled for hours. It feels like it was ages ago. An entire lifetime has passed since that happened, you might’ve forgotten it altogether if he didn’t decide to ask that very simple question in a very specific way.

“I…” you mumble in response, your heart suddenly pounding. “Not… not yet.”

Okay, that’s a good answer. It’s the truth and you’re giving nothing away by saying that. So now what is he going to say? What is he going to say? You spoke your piece, it’s his turn now, that’s how conversations work. Well typically, that’s how conversations work—but with Din… you probably should’ve known.

He falls back into silence almost immediately, appearing to accept your answer just the way it is without anything else to add. You feel his heart continue to beat strong against your back, but there’s something too tense about his stillness that doesn’t imply he’s relaxing anymore. His body goes slightly taut, but not from the lingering chill in his bones.

He’s going to make you ask him, you realize. He’s waiting until you confront him about his choice in words at the shooting range. Which means he wasn’t just joking around. He wasn’t just messing with you.

“Din…” you whisper uncertainly, and his face suddenly finds its way into the crook of your neck as soon as the word leaves your mouth, arms tightening up around you. You spent forever trying to find the words to even bring this up, and here he is, already knowing exactly what you’re asking just by the tone of your voice. Still, you ask anyway, sounding small and so unsure of yourself in the darkness. “Why did you say that? On Tatooine, why did you…”

Din’s chest expands against your back with a long, slow breath, and then he lets it out against your neck, hot enough to raise goosebumps all over your body.

“I… don’t know,” he admits, voice muffled and quiet, but it’s not… casual. Not like he’s brushing you off or indicating he doesn’t want to talk about it, but like it’s actually a complete fucking mystery to him, just as much as it is to you. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know…” you repeat slowly.

“You had said something,” he mutters, shifting just a bit behind you. His palm slides up your bare tummy, stopping in the warm spot just under the swell of your breast. “Earlier that day. I thought about it, and then I just… s-said it.”

You? Said something that made him ask that?

“What?” You blurt out, genuinely startled and having no fucking clue. “What did I say?”

“Something about…” He gives the smallest shudder from behind you, and you don’t actually know if this one is from the cold. “Not wanting anyone else to know me the way you do.”

Your heart rapidly kicks up and you flush, hating how unbelievably possessive your own words sound coming out of his mouth. “Oh shit, I… I didn’t mean for that to be… that sounds so bad, Din, I swear I didn’t mean for it to—”

He cuts you off by clutching you tighter, burying his face deeper into your neck and breathing out shakily. “Tell me you meant every word.”

You blink a couple of times in the pitch black before sighing, letting go of any charade or front you think about putting up for him to save some dignity. “I meant it.”

Because it’s the truth. You said it when you were caught off guard, throwing it out to him along with other mindless drabble that came from a place that was very real. You don’t like the way you phrased it, but you meant it. You do mean it. Every word.

If there weren't so many things still left unsaid right now, you might actually worry he fell asleep on you. Din loosens up considerably after you admit it, letting go of more tightness you didn’t even know was inside him. His head slowly drops from the crook of your neck to the back of it and he breathes hot air on your nape, quiet for a long time.

And, you suppose you’d actually be okay with it if that was the end of the conversation. There are, of course, millions of things left to ask. But he doesn’t know the answers, just as much as you’re left clueless about the questions. You’re not expecting him to elaborate anymore, and if he’s waiting for you to ask, he’ll be waiting a long time. Soon your eyes close and you almost feel yourself beginning to drift. It’s been such a rough day today and to just be here in his arms, it’s more than enough for you.

But then his low baritone comes through the darkness.

“In Mando’a,” Din’s voice suddenly whispers against your skin, “the verb, kar’taylir… it means to know. Su kar’tayli, you know, kaysh kar’tayli, they know. Ni ke kar’tayl nu… I don’t know.”

Your eyes pop open and you immediately forget all about sleep, wide awake and suddenly hanging onto every word as it rolls so gently off his tongue. You’ve never heard the language spoken aloud, you’ve never heard anything about the Mandalorians directly from one before. All of the stories seem sensationalized, passed down by word of mouth and chipping away at the kernel of truth until it disappears completely.

“The language is dying,” Din continues, murmuring soft and gentle along your nape. “By the time I learned it, too many words had been lost. The ones left were the ones that were needed.”

“What do you mean?” You whisper, almost afraid of breaking the quiet. Not wanting him to feel distracted or pressed, but needing to express your curiosity lest you somehow overflow with it.

“There are only three pronouns,” he answers slowly, and you’re already fucking fascinated. “Ni, for I or we. Su is you or you all, and kaysh is third person. Subjective, objective, possessive, singular, plural—doesn’t matter. Three words, for every individual or collective in the entire galaxy.”

You blink in the darkness, your logic telling you that it sounds so simple it’d become confusing and then your logic also telling you that doesn’t actually make any fucking sense at all. If that’s true, it’s unbelievable. How do they differentiate? Just context?

“How do you distinguish?” You ask him. Admittedly, you don’t know much about linguistics—not anywhere near the extent he does, but it seems so counterintuitive. I can’t be the same word for we, the amount of misunderstandings would be a nightmare.

“We… don’t need to,” he explains to you, slowly, like nobody has ever asked him these things before and so he’s unsure how to phrase it. “Individuality isn’t valued, it’s not a concept.”

And… you almost can’t wrap your head around it. “What do you mean?” You ask again, knowing you’re sounding like a broken record without specifying more, but trying with your whole heart to understand.

“I mean… we swear oaths to never reveal our faces,” Din tells you, something you shouldn’t need to be reminded of. “We abandon our names. We become… whispers, of the same voice. There’s not many words in Mando’a with a unique meaning, almost all of them are homonyms. Interchangeable. Transient.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, suddenly blown away by the implication. Almost all of them are homonyms? How in Maker’s name are you even supposed to communicate at that point? That’s… unthinkable.

“Most words have two meanings?” You clarify, wanting to be absolutely sure you’re getting it right.

“Most have five or six,” he returns, and you’re downright shocked now. “Everything just depends.”

“Stars…” You breathe, moving a palm up the length of his forearm and holding the back of his hand with it. Fuck, you hope this is the direction he’s intending instead of veering him off course, but you’re incredibly invested. “What else does, uh… kay—er, kar… kar’taylir mean?”

Din lets out a slow breath from behind you, and you can… you can feel his own heart beating faster when it presses up against your spine at the apex of his inhale. “It’s… a rare word, it only has two meanings.”

You bite your lip and start to feel butterflies in your stomach for some reason. Slowly, his hand begins to travel up your breast and then to your sternum before heading just the slightest bit left, and your own hand moves with him.

“To know,” Din says quietly, “but also… to care very deeply for.” He doesn’t stop until his palm presses right above the rapidly pounding organ in your chest. “To hold in the heart.”

“To know,” you swallow thickly, curling your fingers around his hand and praying he’s saying what you think he is, “or… to love?”

“When Mandalorian’s take vows, there’s no ceremony,” he whispers into the back of your neck. “No witnesses, no celebrations. We just take our helmets off in front of the other and look. It doesn’t sound like much, but… our secrecy is our survival. Letting someone see our face and swearing lifelong devotion to them, it’s the same thing. To know is to love.”

Your eyes close tight and your lungs empty themselves, too full of emotion to even fit oxygen inside you anymore. Din’s lips press feather soft behind your neck, and now you’re the one shivering uncontrollably. The move up and trail along your neck in the darkness.

“Ni kar'tayl su,” he murmurs, shifting back just slightly and pulling at your shoulder. “I know you.”

You go with him, facing the ceiling as he fits his head under your throat and places slow, open mouth kisses down the curve of it.

“Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum,” he goes on quietly, his voice starting to sound raspy again, dragging his hand down your torso while his lips brush your collarbone. “For an eternity, I’ll know you.”

Water wets the corners of your lashes and you inhale three or four times before exhaling, shallow hiccups and desperate for air.

“Ni ke vaabi nu kaysh ke kar’taylir su te ni kar’tayl su.” Din says, slowly moving his mouth back up when your fingers tangle in his hair and beg him to come that way. The words dance along your skin as he whispers them, forever searing themselves into your memory. You can’t see them, you’ll never have a visual to reminisce upon, but you’ll know how they felt. Right under your ear, brimming with quiet devotion. “I don’t want anyone else to know you… the way I know you.”

Your face goes blazing hot at the sound of him translating your own rushed and half-assed sentence into something gorgeous and flowing, something that sounds so much more beautiful than when you blurted it out earlier. You told him you loved him in that hangar, right to his face. Unashamed and stupid about it, but meaning it with every part of your body.

“I knew you’d say no,” he finally admits, staying in this one spot. Unmoving. Telling you the truth, allowing you to know it. “I just wanted to… say it.”

That… that makes sense to you. The last part does, at least, it makes so much sense to you. The first time you said you loved him, you said it just to say it. You wanted to feel the words, sound them out even if neither one of you could hear them. It felt freeing, like coming to accept a universal truth.

The first part, though. You’re still behind. “You knew I’d say no?” You ask him, feeling him ease back just slightly. Staring down at you through the pitch black, even if he can’t see either. Keeping his palm over your heart as the ship hurdles through nowhere and everywhere at once.

“You wouldn’t take my first name without convincing,” he reasons quietly, and then moves back to lay in the blankets once more, leaving the rest unspoken.

But he’s… oh stars, he’s so right. If he’s going to take his helmet off and let you see his face—if he’s going to commit to you that way, it is not going to be because you shoot a blaster correctly. Not after today, not after what he’s told you.

So you move up to your elbow and turn to face him, trying to let him know why even if he’s already guessed the what correctly.

“I want it to mean something,” you say after a moment. “I want it to… have the meaning it’s supposed to have.”

Your palm finds its way to his chest in the silence following. Right over the beating of his heart, feeling it thrum hard and rhythmic while he considers his response.

“This is The Way,” Din finally murmurs, settling his hand over yours, and you repeat the words back to him. Respecting them. Feeling like, for the very first time, they now apply to you in some way instead of belonging to some mysterious creed you’ll never know anything about.

But when a shudder subtly rockets up and down his body, you realize the blankets have been pulled down with the changing positions and his whole torso is bare and exposed to the hull. So you pull them up until you’re both covered again, before you lean down and press a soft kiss to his shoulder.

Din shudders again when your mouth opens and the hot glide of your tongue catches his skin, but you know it’s not from the cold this time. His breathing deepens while you slowly move over him. You ease him further on his back and let him keep feeling the warmth of your mouth on his body, alleviate the lingering chill by sucking gentle hickeys into his skin and feeling the goosebumps raise under your tongue. He moves with you; he stretches his neck when you want to nibble his collarbone, arches when you mouth down his chest, shifts his elbow to let you drag your tongue along his ribcage.

And… and it’s as if all the stars and systems hold even more still for you than the relative physics of faster-than-light travel can explain away by themselves. You’ve always felt timeless in here, living from one fleeting eternity to the next, suspended in perpetuity while the rest of the galaxy ages without you. But when you’re with him and it’s pitch black and there’s no light to streak across your vision, no evidence that time and space have all but disconnected from each other just to let your insignificant little bodies through… it’s like you’re meant to be here. In some strange, unexplainable way, you feel like you could’ve died out there with him in the frozen wasteland today and this is exactly where you’d still end up, no matter what.

To know is to love.

“Do you have brown eyes?” You hear yourself whisper under his jaw, and you feel Din’s fingers thread in your hair and ease you up enough to brush his lips against your chin.

“Yes,” he whispers back, and then his mouth is on yours.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #fanfic #star wars fanfic #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin #no-droids #reader insert

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221bshrlocked · 4 years

Text

sweaty hands, reluctant hearts

Pairing: The Mandalorian (Din Djarin) x Fem!Reader

Words: 13685 (god this wasn’t supposed to be this long I’m actually sorry this time)

Warnings: Angst and Smut (my fav). Hurt/Jealous Mando -> Touch Starved/Rough Mando -> Fluffy Mando -> Shy Mando. Penetrative Sex. Oral Sex. There’s lot’s of sweat because exertion yall. Breeding Kink 😏. Slight Exhibitionism. Overstimulation and slight slight non-con because of oversensitivity. Umm, squirting 🙃. Dirty/Sweet talk. Spanking (ass and hoohaa).

Summary: He never thought the day would come when he’d hear you saying you wanted to leave him. Yes there was an understanding between the two of you that you were hired to help him care for the Child and to somehow keep the Razor Crest alive and working. And he knew it made sense for you to find work elsewhere now that the Razor Crest was destroyed and the Child was with his own kind. But he just assumed you weren’t going to leave considering it’s been a couple of months since he’d given the kid to the Jedi and you never brought it up. It hurt hearing you say those words, especially when he realized he wasn’t meant to hear them and that you were confiding in Cobb Vanth of all people. Turns out, all Mando needed was to see the Marshal eye-fucking you as you fixed the new ship and overshared your thoughts for him to snap and finally make a move. Hopefully he can change your mind...

A/N: Yall, this is post Season 2 so sadly Grogu is not here, hence the angst! Umm, this was a lot to handle because you know, that gif here. Enjoy ☺️

It’s been months since the events that transpired on the cruiser. Months since he’d given away a piece of himself to an unknown being. Months since he’d sat down and re-evaluated his life’s mission. He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen to return to Tatooine of all planets but he needed some time to think of his next steps. So much has changed over the course of the past year and it took the Mandalorian longer than usual to realize that he can’t use bounty hunting to fill the void in his heart.

One thing he did know for sure, however, was that he couldn’t have managed to survive the emotional and physical changes without your presence. Somehow, you’ve managed to make his life easier and by a whole lot. He has never felt this grateful for having a companion, maker, didn’t even think it possible to ever consider another as such. He’d spent years and years living by the Creed and never once doubting his way of living, but he found himself questioning everything about himself when you came in. It wasn’t that he was suddenly open to the idea of taking his helmet off or anything, it was more of a passing thought on what it would be like if he were to open up to you more, perhaps even share with you more than his name and an abridged version of how he became a Mandalorian.

He mulled over how he would approach the topic with you, finding himself growing more nervous when he considered how you’d react. You’ve never given him any inclination of ever thinking of him as more than your boss and he knew he needed to figure out a way to make this seem natural and not forced. Frankly, he found it interesting how you managed to read him better than anyone he’s ever met, and he wished he could ask you how you’d done so when he never took off his helmet.

Mando pushed the thought aside for now, cursing to himself as he dragged the giant piece of scrap you’d requested for him to pick up from Peli. He wanted to argue with you then, tell you that the only reason for coming to this awfully hot planet was to take some time off, if that was even possible, and avoid falling into the temptation of another mission. But he couldn’t find it in himself to say any of these things, mostly because you were the one that managed to procure the new ship for him and you were also the one that told him the two of you were in serious need of rest. He’d only realized the ship needed fixing when he landed and you told him you would get right on as soon as he picked up the necessary pieces from Peli. He felt a little out of the loop when he’d gone to her and found her giving him everything you’d requested for, and he knew you must have contacted her before you landed or else she wouldn’t have been this quick.

As he made his way through the quiet “streets” of Mos Pelgo, he thought back to what Peli said to him an hour ago. Had he not considered her as a friend, he would have responded rudely when she bugged him about you. As much as he wished to humor the idea that you looked at him as more than a colleague, partner, whatever it was the two of you were, he didn’t want to grow any more false hope, especially now that he’d already given up the one thing that managed to crawl into his heart.

Mando saw that you’d moved the ship behind the cantina and he chose to blame the heat for the way his skin crawled with goosebumps because no, he didn’t suddenly feel calm at the thought of you.

He shook his head from the intruding thought and was about to say something to you when he saw who was standing nearby. If there was ever a time where he didn’t wish to see Cobb Vanth, it was definitely now. The bounty hunter put down the scraps of metal before moving closer to where the two of you were standing. He was sheltered behind a shack of sorts and allowed his heart rate to return to normal before listening in on you.

“I don’t believe you sweetheart.” The Marshal threw back his drink and shook his head when you shrugged your shoulders at him and Mando felt his stomach twist at the endearment. Since when were the two of you on such a close basis?

“Believe whatever you want Marshal, I was only answering your question. Besides, it’s not like I’m actively looking right now.” Mando watched as you swiped the sweat rolling down your face with the back of your hand and swore when he felt the fabric of his pants grow tighter around his crotch. He felt dirty watching your every move, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the way your muscles gleamed under the excruciating sun rays. He cursed the day you bought that garment and he recalled back to the first time he watched you work in it. Mando had almost tripped over the child that day because he never expected to see you walking around with the chest binding so visible to his eyes. It was worse when you reached up high for something because if his eyes lingered long enough, he could see your undergarment peeking from the low-hanging pants of the overalls.

The bounty hunter had to take a few deep breaths to move on from the inappropriate thoughts he was having and he narrowed his eyes at Cobb when he saw him walk closer to you.

“Are you ever going to tell him?” The Mandalorian watched as your expression shifted slowly to a more sombre look and he was familiar enough with you to know that you weren’t too happy with that question or the answer you were going to give Cobb.

“I- I don’t know. I wish I could tell him about how I fe- what I’m thinking about but I can’t...and I also can’t just say ‘Hey Mando, I had a blast taking care of the kid and getting hunted by the kriffing Empire. I fixed the ship for you so see you later.’ It’s not right and I didn’t realize it would be this difficult to come to terms with what I have to do. But I can’t keep doing this, it’s not fair.”

Whatever the Mandalorian thought you were going to say, that certainly didn’t make the top of the list. He almost fell back when he registered the meaning behind your words. You wanted to leave. You’ve been wanting to move on for a while and you weren’t sure how to tell him. You were confiding in Cobb Vanth of all people and relying on his opinion to decide what you were going to do. A thousand thoughts flew through his mind and he tried to see if he’d done anything wrong. Besides the whole thing with Gideon and Bo Katana, there wasn’t really anything he’d done that would inspire such a reaction from you. Not that those weren’t enough to change your mind about staying with him but it was all in the past now.

The sound of laughter broke Mando out of his haze and he turned towards you again, watching as you slithered down the ship, clenching his fists tightly when he saw Cobb grab your hips to help you down. He was torn between strutting towards the two of you and punching the daylights out of him and remaining where he was to listen in on your conversation. He had no right to do either, but he needed to know.

“I hate to ask you this question because it defeats the whole purpose of this entire chat but...have you thought of how he’d take it? Should you decide on-” You pointed to something on the floor and Cobb leaned down to grab it for you, handing it and gauging your reaction to his question as you continued to work.

“Why else do you think I’ve been putting this off? Of course I’ve thought of how he’d react. But I deserve more than...ugh, I don’t mind this, I swear I don’t, but I also can’t just sit back and pretend I don’t want more.” You motioned violently to the ship and to what you were doing as you spoke, shaking your head at the man smiling smugly in front of you before throwing out the tools and snatching his drink from him.

Mando couldn’t stand to be near you, not after what he’d heard and certainly not after taking in your body language and the way Cobb was practically undressing you without shame. He stepped back, leaving the scraps where they were and heading to the cantina to take his mind off of what he’d just witnessed. He walked in and paid no mind to the patrons scattered across the room, handing the man behind the counter more credits than he cared to count and asking him for his strongest stuff. He didn’t bother to address the judgmental stare he was receiving and took hold of the bottle before walking out again.

It was close to sunset and the Mandalorian walked until the edge of the town before deciding to continue until he reached a small hill filled with large boulders. Sliding down one of the rocks, he sighed deeply before taking off his helmet, the hissing sound instilling a sense of guilt deep in his chest. He was ashamed at feeling such an emotion towards what he based his entire life on. But he couldn’t take it anymore. His anger rose as he opened the large bottle in his hand, throwing it back until he felt the stinging drink burn his throat for a few seconds before aggressively setting it on the floor next to him.

Mando wasn’t able to put what he was feeling into a proper string of thoughts but he did know it was an odd mixture of hurt and anger with a tiny bit of sexual frustration. He couldn’t get the image of you sweaty and heaving as you worked on his ship out of his mind, shutting his eyes and throwing his head back to meditate back on the way your muscles clenched and pulled every time you molded two metal scraps together or how they positively shined when you carried things across the sand. He’d tried his hardest to set all of these feelings and rather inappropriate thoughts aside but he couldn’t any longer. Not when there was a chance of you leaving him, and perhaps to someone like the Marshal too.

Perhaps it was unwise to deny his heart’s desires for so long and Mando was sure that he’d met his breaking point because he couldn’t stop thinking about you. Normally, he was able to distract himself and force his mind to stray away from conjuring up the filthiest images of you wreathing and crying beneath him as he drove his cock into your heat. But he had no hold over his mind at this moment, not that he was to blame. He went from shutting his own self out to opening the floodgates, and there was no going back.

He sighed heavily when his thoughts shifted to what you said about him and he took a long sip from the bottle before turning his attention to the setting suns. He didn’t know what he could even say if you ever approached the topic with him. You’d been wanting to leave for a while now and somehow managed to hide it from him. All those nights spent running from Moff Gideon and other bounty hunters and you haven’t complained once, choosing to keep it to yourself. He wasn’t sure if he was hurt because you felt the need to hide something like this from him or because you were awfully understanding of how these complaints could distract him.

And then there was the whole thing with the ship. He had assumed that the two of you sort of shared it now but it seemed that you never saw it as belonging to you but only to him. And you went out of your way to fix it now when you didn’t have to. Mando didn’t notice his tears until he licked his drying lips and tasted the saltiness across his mouth. He wiped his cheeks and laughed at himself. When had he become like this? First it was the child and now you.

He wished he could take it all back, to have never met the kid or you. His life was simple and not complicated and now, now he was faced with the prospect of losing you as well. The bounty hunter dismissed the thought as quickly as it came because he knew deep down that it was better to have had the two of you in his life, even for a short while, than to have never known you. It wasn’t ideal but since when was his life ideal?

As the suns set beneath the sky, the Mandalorian looked down and saw that the bottle was still almost full. Not wanting to finish it now, because he might actually need it later when you decide to leave, Mando stood up and slowly made his way back into town. He needed to sleep, not to rest but to put a pause on his rather depressing thoughts if only for a little bit. When he saw the town come into view, he took a deep breath and put his helmet back on.

The town was quieter than usual and the Mandalorian found himself going straight to the ship instead of joining the others. He’d spent the past few days enjoying his nights in the corner of the busy cantina, watching as you won one Sabacc game after another without breaking a sweat while everyone groaned in annoyance at how well you were kicking their asses. But he couldn’t trust himself tonight, not around you and certainly not around the Marshal.

Trying not to bring too much attention to himself, Mando walked past the cantina towards the ship, already thinking of how relieved he’d be once he used the refresher. Going up the ramp, he was about to walk to the small, private room near the cockpit to grab a change of clothes when he heard a loud shriek that sounded a lot like his name coming from the opposite end of the ship. Mando quickly turned around and shut his eyes in exasperation when he saw you approaching him far angrier than he’d ever seen you. He set the bottle down and turned his attention towards you, raising an eyebrow to himself when he saw your chest heaving beneath the chest band. He averted his eyes quickly, refusing to think of you sweaty and breathless under other circumstances. Maker, he couldn’t go no like this.

“Where in the kriffing hell have you been? You were supposed to bring the parts from Peli hours ago and I have to find out from some kid that you just left them on the ground and walked away to- hell, I don’t even know what was more important for you than bringing me the scraps so I could fix the ship? Really, Mando, I understand that it’s been a little weird and difficult lately but I barely ask for anything and, ugh, maker.” You held back from voicing more of your thoughts, afraid that you’ve already gone far with asking him where he was. He didn’t really need to tell you what his business was but you’d assumed the two of you have come to an understanding regarding such matters, at the very least to ensure everyone’s safety.

Mando stood there in silence and took a deep breath before turning around and walking into his room, afraid he’d give himself away if he tried to respond to you.

You furrowed your eyebrows in frustration when he quietly walked away from you, anger rising in your chest as he came out and made his way past you to the refresher. Before you could think twice of what you were doing, you were sprinting past him and standing in front of the open door, pushing your fingers into his beskar-clad chest as you hissed at him.

“I’m not sure what happened or why you’re giving me the silent treatment right now but this is not how we deal with our problems okay.” Mando took a few steps back as you continued to shove your finger into him, trying his hardest to not grab your wrist and push you against the nearest wall. “We talk things out and we come up with a way to fix things and compromise if need be.” Mando’s back hit the wall, and he threw his head back to avoid your gaze, unable to hold back the chuckle that rose from beneath the helmet at your words.

How ironic.

“Did I say something funny?” You narrowed your eyes up at him and wished for once that he’d remove that god damn helmet so you could gauge his reaction.

“You mean we should talk things out like you and Cobb Vanth today? Or would it be different?” Mando’s chest tightened when he noticed the surprised expression on your face, knowing very well this was not what you expected to hear from him. He was a rational man, never once letting his mind give away to such simplistic thoughts but you’d struck a nerve and he could no longer hide his jealousy. Yes, it was jealousy. As much as he hated to admit it, that’s what he was feeling right now, what he’s been feeling all day long. It was childish and unlike him but it wasn’t going to do him any good if he continued to ignore it.

“I’m dying to know if that’s what you mean. You obviously don’t have an issue telling him about how difficult it’s been working with me and how you can’t keep doing this.” It was your turn to take a few steps back when you saw his shoulders push out and make him taller than he already was. He continued to walk towards you, throwing his clothes to the ground and almost apologizing when you tripped on your feet when he was only a foot away from you.

“How about this, let’s start with what you apparently wish you could tell me but can’t seem to find the right words to do so. What was it you said to him? You deserve more than taking care of a kid and constantly escaping the Empire and other bounty hunters? Or wait, how can I forget...it’s not fair dealing with this mess of a ship and you’re looking for somewhere else to go?” You swallowed the lump in your throat as the Mandalorian repeated back the words you voiced perhaps a little too loudly earlier today, already feeling your eyes fill with unshed tears at harsh his tone.

“I- I didn’t…you weren’t meant to-” You tripped over your words and almost flinched when he cut you off.

“What? I wasn’t supposed to hear you say any of those things? A little strange don’t you think, since you seemed to have a lot to say about me to the Marshal.” Mando should have stopped himself from saying the next few words but his heart was torn into a million pieces and it wasn’t fair for him either.

“Well guess what, sweetheart, the Razor Crest blew up. Moff Gideon is taken care of and the Empire isn’t after us anymore. Every bounty hunter knows better than to so much as look at me and...and the kid isn’t around anymore for you to take care of. He’s gone, I lost him. So if you were worried about hurting me, you’re a little too late for that.” The Mandalorian barely held himself back from pulling you into his arms when he saw tears rolling down your cheek, clenching his fists tightly when he noticed the way you hugged yourself and frowned at him.

“Din-” It broke him to hear you use his name, especially now of all times. He hasn’t heard you say it once in the past few months, even when the two of you were alone. It was the twisting of the knife, and he bit his tongue to distract himself from saying something he couldn’t possibly take back.

“Do what you want, I won’t stand in the way. Besides, I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to help you out with whatever it was you were telling him today. After all, you deserve more right? Deserve someone more than me...someone who’s willing to share a lot more than his name.” Not bothering to wait for a response, Mando stepped away and walked back to his room, not caring about the clothes on the ground or how hurt you must have been feeling from listening to him.

He softly shut the door behind him and moved to his bed, throwing himself on it and hanging his head low to catch his breath. This was not how he saw the night going, not remotely. He was hoping to ask you about this tomorrow in a less hostile manner and without making it seem like he was blaming you. But something about your words struck a nerve in him and he wasn’t able to hold back anymore, not when you were suggesting things you yourself weren’t willing to follow.

Din wasn’t sure how long he sat there in silence but the hissing sound of the door opening brought him back from his haze and he opened his eyes when he heard you walking towards him. You’d never once come into his room, not even when he occasionally gave you permission. You sniffed twice before approaching the bed and standing right in front of him and he was reminded of when the child would cry to try to catch his attention.

“Din, it was never my intention to hurt you. I was trying to do the opposite..thought I was doing the right thing by thinking about this before I could talk to you but I’m realizing now that I’ve hurt you.” Din noticed the way you were ringing your fingers nervously and held himself back from taking your hands into his to try and put you at ease.

“I- I only spoke with Cobb because he- because he noticed the way I was looking at you. He noticed how I can never seem to focus on anything or anyone else when you’re around. He- he could tell I was having a hard time coming to terms with how I feel about you...how I’ve felt about you for a while now.” Din’s heart skipped a beat at your confessions, unable to properly register what you were implying because he could never even humor the idea that you’d have feelings for him. He raised his head and finally looked at you, frowning when he saw how red your eyes were from crying.

“The last thing I want to do is to leave you, please believe me. But I wasn’t sure if you even wanted me around after...after everything with Moff Gideon and the Jedi. As far as I knew, you brought me on to take care of Grogu and fix the Razor Crest. We’ve barely spoken ever since the cruiser and I just thought that I was only around because you couldn’t find the time to tell me that you don’t need me anymore.” Hearing you say that you thought he didn’t need you caught Din off guard and he wasn’t able to hold back anymore, instantly taking hold of your hands and pulling you towards him until you were standing in between his legs. You swallowed the lump in your throat and maintained your gaze on his visor, hoping that he could see how truthful you were being with him and maybe respond, if only with just a simple word.

“When I said I deserved more, I was just- I swear I wasn’t talking about your Creed or wanting to see you. As much as I wish that was possible, I would never...could never ask you for something like that. I was only telling him that I might need some time away to maybe forget how...maker, to perhaps try and set aside my emotions because the last thing you need right now is for me to lay that on you. I don’t want you to think that you owe me anything because you don’t, gods you don’t owe anyone anything, not after what you’ve been through. But I could feel myself becoming more attached to you, especially after everything that happened on the cruiser. I want more with you but I don’t want to push you towards anything you’re not ready for.” Before you could wipe the tears away from your cheeks, Din was raising his glove-covered fingers and softly skimming them over your skin, and he hadn’t realized how harsh and loud his breathing was until he felt you rest your hand on his chest.

“There’s nothing between me and Cobb. And you should know by now that he’s...friendly, with everyone.” You smiled shyly at him before leaning into the hand resting on your cheek, nuzzling further into his palm when he swiped his thumb against your lower lip. There was so much Din wanted to say but he couldn’t find the right words that would convey what he was feeling. He was having a hard time wrapping his mind about your admission and the fact that you have been returning his affection for a while now.

Din didn’t realize how long he was quiet until you cleared your throat and let go of his hand, stepping away from him and looking around to see if you should just leave. Before you could head to the door, however, Din was standing up and moving towards you, his eyes searching your face for any signs of discomfort before he made his next move. Your chest was rising and falling a little quicker than he liked but he quickly realized it was probably because of how you were coming to terms with what you just said to him.

You watched as he took his gloves off and set them on the small table behind you, suppressing a gasp when you felt his warm, calloused hands wrap around yours before bringing them to his helmet. He could tell you were letting him control all of your movements and found it difficult to accept just how much you were willing to give to him.

“As much as I hate to admit it, I have been thinking about this for a while.” Din smiled when he saw your eyebrows furrow in question at his words. “Taking this off.” He saw the moment you understood what he was saying, not expecting you to pull your hands away from him and taking a few steps back until your back was against the wall.

“That’s...that’s not what I- Din, I wasn’t lying when I said it wouldn’t matter to me if-” He smiled at how defensive you suddenly were and stepped towards you once more, and you found it annoying that he barely kept a foot between you two, his natural scent hitting you like a blaster to the gut.

“I know.” Din cut you off before taking your hands into his once more, rubbing your knuckles to put you at ease as he continued. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this and- it’s not that I’ll walk around without it now, far from it. It’ll only be when we’re alone, when no one is around.” He hoped you could read in between the lines because this would be the closest he’d come to admitting how important you were to him, for now at least.

“Besides, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

That definitely snapped you out of your haze and you tilted your head to the side before asking home what he was referring to.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” Din raised an eyebrow at your response. Have you already forgotten?

“On the cruiser, when I- before Grogu went with the Jedi.” His hands tightened around your fingers as he said the child’s name and you were momentarily distracted before realizing what he meant.

“Din I...I never saw you.”

For a split second, it felt like someone had taken Din and carbon froze him before throwing him on an ice planet.

“What?” He held his breath, unable to move a muscle until he made sure he heard you correctly.

“I never saw you. I turned around when you reached for your helmet. I didn’t...it was a moment with you and Grogu. It didn’t feel right to look at you.” You tried to maintain a semblance of control on your voice but it cracked a few times as you admitted to him. As much as you yearned to see him without the mask, you didn’t think it proper without his clear consent.

Din’s sudden intake of breath made you nervous and you hated how for a moment, you wished you didn’t tell him because there was now a high probability that he wouldn’t take the mask off.

“Cyar'ika, please.” you shivered at the low tone of his voice, finding it harder to focus on anything but the touch of his skin. Once again, Din slowly brought your hands to the sides of his visor, pushing the palm of your hands on the beskar and softly nodding at you. A sudden sense of relief washed over him when he saw the slight nod of your head.

Din found it endearing how your whole face scrunched up in focus as the two of you slowly pulled the helmet off of his head, the soft hissing sound as it unlocked making your hands dampen with sweat. As you raised the visor along with him, you couldn’t help but shut your eyes as soon as you saw the skin of his chin. Unbeknownst to you, Din was watching your every reaction and felt a little nudge in his chest when he saw how tightly shut your eyes were. When the beskar was off completely, Din took it from your hands and placed it next to him, swallowing the lump in his throat when he turned back and saw you were still refusing to look at him.

He reluctantly took your hands into his and placed them on his chest, hoping that you’d finally open your eyes without him begging you again.

“I’m sorry I- maker, this is..this is probably more intense for you than it is for me and I’m not making it any better with my nervousness and- okay. Okay.” You took a deep breath before allowing your eyes to flutter open, unable to exhale as soon as you laid your gaze on him. Din was probably unaware of how nervous he looked and it took you a few longer seconds to realize you needed to breathe again. You weren’t sure what you were expecting, the long nights where you imagined what he could look like fading into thin air because nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared you for what you were currency seeing.

His features were somehow soft but a little rugged, and you found yourself committing every inch of his skin to memory, filling your mind’s eye with every minute facial expression so you could dream of him when you fall asleep. It was oddly not surprising at all that he had a stubble, the scattered dark and slightly graying hairs across his jaw and above his lips making him seem older than he probably was. And you weren’t sure if he knew he was furrowing his eyebrows and then you realized he most likely didn’t because he was so used to wearing his helmet that he never had to learn how to control his facial expressions around anyone. And it was endearing how his nose flared as he continued to breathe heavily under your gaze, and if it weren’t for the fact that this was a serious moment, you would have leaned over and kissed the curved bridge of his nose and the scrunch of his eyebrows to put him at ease.

Din wasn’t sure what he thought your reaction would be and he felt his chest tighten with every long moment you spent without so much as a comment.

You were unaware of how long this dreadful moment must have been for the Mandalorian and you continued to study him in hopes of finding answers to questions you’ve wished you could ask him ever since he hired you. There were heavy bags under his eyes and you wished you were more persistent with him when it came to his resting schedule but he always seemed to wave you off whenever you told him he needed to sleep. Though you knew this stress had to do more with Grogu no longer being here and less with how often he slept. You had half expected to find his gaze harsh and far off but when you did finally meet his eyes, you found them filled with unshed tears and a multitude of emotions that you knew would go unexplained until he had the strength to voice them. They were a deep and beautiful shade of brown, ones you knew you’d never be able to turn away from now that you’ve had a proper look at him. And you couldn’t help but notice how their color reminded you of a Nightbloomer just after you picked it from its roots.

All of that, however, could not compare to when you finally let your eyes descend to his lips. They were a darker shade of pink, and you swore you saw them parting as soon as you looked at them. His lower lip was trembling and you wished more than anything to swipe your thumb against it if only to feel the soft skin melt at your touch. You wished that was as far as your mind had gone but the longer you looked at the curve of his mouth, the more you wished you could lean forward and mold your lips with his. It was even worse because you had a feeling that the stubble of his mustache would cause the softest of burns on your lips.

Din could no longer take the loud silence enveloping the room and he swallowed nervously when he saw how focused you seemed to be on his lips. He had some idea of what you were probably thinking because he was thinking the exact same thing but he wasn’t sure if he should be the one to make the first move. This reluctance evaporated when he noticed the way your eyes instantly moved to his neck as the cartilage moved and returned to rest when he gulped, and he realized that you may have been having slightly more inappropriate thoughts than he originally thought.

He was about to voice his worries when he saw your hands move from his beskar-clad chest to his face and he couldn’t stop himself from looking down apprehensively at the digits moving closer to his skin. You misunderstood his nervousness for uncomfort and immediately ceased all movements, returning your focus on his eyes to look for any inclination as to what he wanted.

“Can I- mhmm, may I touch you?” Your whispered question was too loud for the two of you and Din parted his lips to say something but noticed how dry his throat was and realized he couldn’t trust his own voice. Nodding slightly at your request, he waited with bated breath as your fingers rose to his face and found himself shaking with anticipation at the prospect of finally feeling your touch on the most intimate part of him.

When you were only a few inches away from him, Din felt his heart thumping wildly at his chest and he immediately shut his eyes when he felt the feather-light touch of your fingers on his cheeks. The harsh yet shaky intake of breath almost made you lose control and you had to remind yourself that, besides Grogu, you were the only one to ever touch him so intimately and so softly since he was a child. As much as you wished to wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer so you could lay as many kisses on his face as you could, you knew it would be too much for him and that he needed you to go slow with him. He was practically shattering under your attention and you hoped he would allow you to do this as many times as possible in the coming days.

Din couldn’t put a name to what he was experiencing at the moment but he knew he didn’t want you to stop touching him, ever again. He decided that he’d spend every moment with you alone without his helmet and with yours hands skimming some part of him. The longer you kept your palms on his cheeks, the calmer his heart beat and it wasn’t until a few moments later that he realized his eyes were shut. As they slowly fluttered open, he was met with the most beautiful sight in the world: your own deep irises staring at your own thumb as it softly passed over his quivering lips.

“You’re...beautiful.”

It was a simple truth and you wished there was a more sincere word you could use to describe what he was to you, what he meant to you but your mind was overflowing with images of waking up next to him every day and kissing his eyes and cheeks and nose and lips and anywhere else you could reach.

Din’s hold tightened around your waist and you watched as he leaned forward until there was barely an inch between the two of you.

“Mesh'la, I would really like to kiss you.” The request barely passed his lips yet you were already standing up on your tiptoes and pressing your lips to his, finding them as soft and gentle as you imagined them to be. Din was afraid his heart would give out any moment now because nothing could have prepared him for the taste of you, let alone the boldness with which you were claiming him. He sighed into you, unintentionally parting his lips and pushing you harder into the wall when he felt your tongue sneak into his mouth and explore him. Din wasn’t sure what he should be doing but then you were moving your hands to the nape of his neck and tangling your fingers into his hair and he all but lost it. As you gently tugged on his hair, Din found himself mirroring your actions and before he knew it, the kiss was no longer innocent and sweet but hungry and needy. You sucked on his tongue and tilted your head to the side, wanting to commit every small detail to memory so when you shut your eyes at night, you’d kiss him in your dreams.

Reluctantly, you pulled back for a second to allow the two of you to breathe but Din didn’t like that, chasing your mouth and molding his lips with yours once more to be certain that yes, this was happening, and that no, this was not a dream. You moaned into the kiss, finding his desperate need to claim your mouth again more of a turn on than you cared to admit. And then his hands were slipping inside your overalls and holding you against his chest, the warmth of him stretching down to where you wished you could feel him.

This sudden intrusive thought and the harsh grasp of your hips snapped you out of your haze and you realized you should be slowing things down for his sake. Against your will, you gently pushed his chest away and tried to think of anything but the way he was heaving above you from the intensity of the kiss. When you looked at him and saw panic and hesitation etched on his face, you returned your hands to his cheeks again and lowered his head until it was resting against your own.

“There’s nothing I want more than to feel every inch of your skin against mine right now...but- but I don’t want to push you to do something that- maker….that might be too much for you?” You pulled back and waited until he opened his eyes again before continuing. “I feel like you just made a dramatic decision by taking the helmet off in front of me and- and you’re probably feeling a multitude of emotions right now and I don’t want to make you think that I-”

Din didn’t like what you were saying, frowning down at you as he grabbed the back of your neck and violently pulled you towards him again. You were surprised by the sudden shift of his touch, fisting your hands in his cowl as he devoured your lips once more, not really giving you a chance to say anything else. Biting your lower lip, Din abruptly ended the kiss and pressed his lips across your skin, nipping and licking at your jaw as he pulled your hair down until he had access to your neck. You gasped his name and felt his stubble scratch deliciously at your shoulder. As you moaned against the wall, Din couldn’t back anymore and bit down hard on your shoulder, smiling when he heard your breath hitch at his rough ministrations.

“Din, oh gods, Din please.” You weren’t sure what you were asking of him exactly and you hoped he’d at the very least continue what he was doing.

“Cyar'ika, I want to have you. I’ve spent many nights dreaming of your lips, your touch, y-your skin against mine as I-” Din hesitated and it wasn’t until you felt his fingers slipping beneath the chest band that you finally registered his voice. Fuck, how had you not notice it a second ago? You thought the vocoder was what altered it, made it deeper perhaps. But no, it only made it sound more intimidating. You weren’t sure what made you clench your thighs together, the way he spoke to you of his desires, or how strained and gruff his voice was as he whispered his secrets to you. You gulped loudly and hesitantly met his eyes, finding the soft brown irises barely visible, his dilated pupils letting you know what he was thinking.

Licking your lips, you nodded at him and fell into a fit of giggles when he leaned down and picked you up as if you weighed nothing, quickly moving to his cot and laying you down on your back before moving away. You were about to ask him what he was doing when you saw his hands swiftly move through the beskar armor. For some reason, watching his hands expertly take off the cuirass and move to the beskar of his thighs made your heart skip a beat and you wouldn’t dare move a muscle, afraid to miss the show he was unintentionally putting on for you. So busy marveling at his deft fingers, you didn’t notice Din slowing his movements and looking at you, eyebrows raised in curiosity when he saw how hard you were breathing.

You broke out of your trance when you saw he stopped moving, embarrassment washing over you when you realized Din had caught you shamelessly staring at him as he came closer to revealing to you more of his skin. You’d expected him to move on, or at least pretend he hadn’t just caught you licking your lips while staring at his fingers but no, it seemed that Din was very much enjoying the effect he had on you because his smile grew when he saw your eyes look past him, pretending to focus on something else behind him and not his hands.

You never lost his attention though, and he maintained his eyes on you as he removed all of his armor and took his boots off. You tried to be a little more subtle but gave up when he leaned down over you and pushed you into his covers. You wanted to ask him why he was still dressed but bit back the inquiry, afraid he’d misunderstand and move away all together at your question. He captured your gaze and didn’t blink once as he slowly undid the buttons holding the overalls and you realized you would have preferred him to keep the helmet on because that meant you wouldn’t notice how passionate and direct his deep brown irises were. You’d expected him to be intense considering how touch-starved and lonely he was, but you never once thought he’d be this vigorous? Ardent? Maker, there wasn’t a single word that could describe the way he was looking at you right now.

Din kneeled at the foot of the bed, waiting until you finally noticed what he was doing and raising your hips before he pulled on the pants of the garment. He slipped your shoes off and finally removed the article of clothing that made his cheeks blush and pants tighten whenever you wore it. He would eventually tell you that this is how you came to him in his dreams almost every night, all spent and sweaty in that gods-forsaken fabric that gave him the perfect view of what you were wearing beneath.

His focus shifted from your face down your damp skin and he breathed in deeply at the sight of your undergarment. Din almost choked on his breath when your legs parted for a moment, giving him a glimpse of the growing wet patch at the center of the flimsy material.

The Mandalorian wanted nothing more than to worship your body, kiss every part of you and whisper his devotion against your skin as he pleasured you over and over again. He’d spent countless nights imagining what he’d do to you if you were ever naked and willing in his arms and he was damned if he didn’t make sure you were thoroughly spent once he was done with you. He wanted to hear his name fall from your lips and he wanted to swallow your sighs and your moans as he sank into you all night long. And by the gods, he wanted to mark your neck and your arms and your waist, and nothing made him harder than picturing you doing the same to him, biting and nipping at his skin so he could wake up in the morning and watch the evidence of your lo- your touch on him. It didn’t matter that no one else would see those bruises but him and you. He just wanted you, in any way possible, sinking beneath his skin.

And then he heard his voice calling for you over the comm link just outside the room and something snapped deep in his chest. He looked up from you to the open door of his room and listened to the Marshal’s words. Your eyes widened in shock when you saw several emotions pass through Din’s eyes, the most prominent of which was anger, maybe hurt. Of all the times Cobb would ask you to join him for drinks, this was most definitely the worst of them. It didn’t help either that he was laughing over some inappropriate joke one of his friends was saying about your sabacc skills. It wouldn’t be the first time this happened and it certainly wouldn’t be the last but then Din was clenching his jaw tightly before looking down at you and you knew he wasn’t too happy. In fact, you had a pretty good idea which emotion won out and you hated how much it affected you, how wet you became as thoughts of the Mandalorian claiming you as his flooded your mind.

Before you could try and reason with him, attempt to tell him that it was just a game and that the Marshal’s friends were probably just teasing him, Din was standing up and stripping of his long-sleeve shirt, revealing his perfectly chiseled, bronze skin that had your mouth watering within moments. You noticed the few dozen scars littering his beautiful torso and wished you could kiss each one of them, the old ones and the fairly new ones, until they didn’t sting with pain. But Din had different plans for you and he didn’t give you a chance to question him as he took hold of both of your wrists and slammed them above your head. His hold was painful and it should have scared you how quickly his mood changed but you said nothing, looking into his dilated pupils as his nose flared and he growled at you.

“Keep yours hands there,” Din warns you with a piercing look and you gulp loudly before nodding at him in understanding. He removes his hand and kneels on the bed, eyes narrowing at you before they sought after your most private areas. He wasn’t sure where to begin. He’d given this much thought but now that he was here, he realized it was a more difficult decision than he anticipated. He’d longed to wrap his lips around those hardened peaks always teasing him through the chest band, lick them until you cried for him, perhaps begged him to stop because you were sensitive. But then he continued down the lines of your navel and found your parted legs much more inviting.

Now that Din knew how you felt, there was no reason for him to feel jealous. But he couldn't stop himself, wanting to be certain that you knew as well as he who you belonged to. He hated himself for having such primitive thoughts about you. You were your own person that much was made clear early on. But he could hope at your words, couldn’t he? He could hope that you were now his, and that he was yours. Maker, he was always yours. He just couldn’t admit it to himself, his heart reluctant at opening up to another.

Din was lost in thought longer than you liked and you moved your feet towards him, nudging his thigh in hopes of reassuring him that you were right here, in his bed, beneath him and at his mercy. Din’s eyes focused on your again and he looked down at the soft gesture, hands instantly grabbing at your ankles. You jumped at the sudden movement, trying your hardest not to whine at the painful grasp because somewhere deep inside of you, you wanted nothing more than to be marked by him. By his teeth, lips, fingers, any part of him. You didn’t care where you’d bear his touch, you just wanted to see it, touch it in the privacy of the refresher when he wasn’t around.

Din saw the needy look you were throwing him and he knew that you were willing. Willing to go as far as he wanted, willing to completely submit your body and soul to him, willing to do whatever he wished of you.

Before your eyes could flutter closed, Din was pushing your legs wide open and falling in between them while maintaining his gaze on you. He almost smiled when your stomach shook at how feral he probably looked. Leaning forward, he closed his eyes as his mouth latched onto the wet patch forming on the soft fabric of your undergarment, moaning into your cunt as he savored the taste seeping through. You were surprised by the boldness of the action and wished for him to lick your skin instead. But there was something erotic about the desperation behind his actions, wanting to taste you so much that he didn’t care what he was licking.

The thought was gone as soon as it appeared because you felt two fingers stretch beneath the waistband right before he ripped it off of your body, shoving the torn fabric in his nose and taking a long whiff of it before humming in approval. Your eyes widened in surprise at the filthiness of his action, hands shaking above you when he threw your panties expertly into his helmet. The thought of knowing that your scent could potentially stick to the inside of his helmet as he walked around twisted your insides and you whined shamelessly at him, wishing he could just take what he wanted.

“Your sounds belong to me,” Din spoke with a commanding voice as he sank in between your thighs again, his tongue dragging across your folds so deliciously hard until he pulled away, leaving a trail of saliva behind. “Your arousal belongs to me,” his hands went to your thighs and he squeezed, knowing fully well there would be bruises dawning your beautiful, smooth body the following morning. Again, you fought to keep your eyes open, wanting to commit every second to memory but finding it difficult to focus on him and not the pleasure zapping down your back. “And I will be damned if this cunt,” Din let go of one of your thighs, pulling his tongue away from your core right before the palm of his hand landed a slap straight on your clit, “doesn’t belong to me either.” You cried out his name, legs shaking violently at the pain shooting through your clit. Din didn’t give you a moment to relax back down on the covers, spanking the outer folds of your pussy twice more consecutively before he replaced the harsh touch with his cooling tongue. Tears trailed down your cheeks as he fucked you with his tongue and lapped at you like you were the only source of water on this gods-forsaken planet. He rotated between soft, quick licks to long, harsh ones, occasionally sucking on your clit and grazing his teeth on the bundle of nerves until he was sure you were going crazy.

“D-Din oh maker, please. Stop I- slow down.” His touches were far from gentle and the pleasure blurred into pain as you tried to reach that delicious peak you’ve longed for ever since you harbored feelings for the man above you. But he was making it difficult, his needy and erratic movements making it near impossible for you to dive into the lake of pleasure. You should have known that the Mandalorian was as intense in bed as he was in every other aspect of his life. You shut your thighs around his head, wanting to push him away as his teeth continued to graze against your wet folds and nip at the pulsating nub.

“M-Mando...I can’t.” You couldn’t take it anymore, hands moving to his hair and fisting in the beautiful brown locks as you tried to push him away. As soon as Din felt the tight grasp on his hair, he snarled at you, pushing up on his knees and bending your body along with him until the only thing resting on the bed was your neck and your shoulders. You cried out for him, begging him to give you release but it only drove him mad with lust. His eyes locked on yours, daring you to look away from him as his fingers dug into your butt cheeks and pushed your cunt into his mouth.

Din pulled away for a split second, biting your inner thighs to grab your attention.

“You will take what I give you ner Cyar’ika.” You saw a hint of darkness in his soulful brown eyes, and shivered at the mere implications of what he had in mind for you. Din sucked and licked at your folds like a crazed man, feeling your legs shaking on his shoulders. He pulled away for a second, and you had no time to beg him to be gentle as he slapped your heated core three times again, hissing when you shut your eyes and bucked against him, your juices drenching his face and chest, leaking down your back as he smiled before taking your cunt into his mouth one last time to prolong your pleasure. You were too busy trying to remain sane to realize what had just happened and Din slowly lowered you back onto the wet covers before letting go of you. You were panting beneath him, stomach fluttering from the force of your release and chest heaving as you tried to fill your lungs with air.

When you opened your eyes and looked at Din, your eyes widened in horror when you saw his glistening skin, finally realizing what he'd just done to you. You flushed under the scrutiny of Din’s gaze, gasping as he wiped his mouth and jaw with the back of his hand as he looked down and chuckled at the wet spot beneath his knees. You quickly shut your legs and tried to crawl away from him but Din was faster, grabbing your ankle and pulling you back to him, the show of strength already making your cunt clench around nothing again.

“You do not run from me Ad’ika...nor hide from me ever again. I own your body, your skin, the cum still leaking out of this sweet cunt.” His words were filthy and you didn’t know how to react to this new possessiveness he was showing. He pushed open your thighs and fell in between him, bringing his chest flush against yours and kissing the breath out of you, not bothering to be gentle as his fingers twisted and pinched at your nipples. You clawed at his back, wanting more of him but not knowing if you would be able to take any more of what he was offering.

He pulled away suddenly, his jaw clenching tightly as he took one look at the hands wrapped around his back.

“Did I not tell you to not move your hands sweet girl?” He whispered against your lips, breathing in the air leaving your lungs as he pecked the corner of your mouth before flipping you over on your stomach.

“I- I’m sorry...it was just t-too much and-” You couldn’t finish the rest of the sentence, screaming against the covers as you felt Din’s palm land on your ass. You looked back and saw him eyeing your reddening skin, looking up at you and smiling as he treated the other side with the same kindness. Four more times his hands smacked your ass and you were ashamed at how aroused his violent actions made you. When he snuck his fingers in between your thighs and swiped haphazardly at your folds, you moaned and bit into your wrist.

“Filthy sweet girl,” Din whispered more to himself than you before he fisted his hand in your hair and pulled you flush to his chest, the slide of your dampened back against his sweaty chest bringing him more pleasure than he would have liked to admit because not a few hours ago, he was picturing your sweaty, glistening skin beneath him. And now that he had you here, he was going to make the best of it.

“Mando, oh Mando-” As much as he loved hearing you scream his nickname in the throws of passion, he wished more to hear his given name fall from your lips.

“My name...scream my name sweet girl. Let the stars know who pleasures you Cyare.” Din kissed your shoulder before biting into the sweaty flesh, the hand in your hair letting go right before wrapping softly around your throat and pressing you harder against him. Your hands twisted back to try and grab his hair but he immediately took your wrist and twisted it until it was behind you, between your back and his chest.

“Ahh Din…” You wanted to beg him to allow you to touch him, tell him that you were yearning to touch him as much as he was in need of touching you. But you had a feeling that this wasn’t true, and that this was his way of being certain that you weren’t going to leave him. That you were his.

If only he knew that you have already belonged to him. Long before tonight.

You felt each breath leave your lungs as Din tightened his grasp around your throat and you parted your lips to moan his name, only to feel his tongue shamelessly licking into your mouth. So distracted by the desperation in this kiss, you didn’t notice the fingers trailing down your chest and digging into your skin until the palm of his hand softly cupped one breast. Din teased you with feather light touches, flicking at one nipple before moving to the other and circling around it until it hardened. He continued to swallow your noises, sucking on your tongue to quiet you as he pinched your nipples. You twisted in his arms, wanting to reach for him again but knowing that he would probably pull your hand away.

When Din pulled away to allow you to breathe, you panted and finally opened your eyes, not daring to look away as he kept you motionless with his gaze. Din watched as you tried to form a coherent thought, waiting until you parted your lips to speak to him before reaching down and cupping your quivering cunt as he broke the silence.

“This belongs to me,” your breath hitched when Din pressed the palm of his hand against you, not quite applying pressure on your clit but just enough to hold your focus. “Only I get to touch you, kiss you, watch you as you come undone in my arms.” You nodded briefly at him, continuing to hold eye contact as he began to increase his actions. “No one else will ever have you Cyar'ika. No one but me.” He slipped two fingers past your wet folds and rubbed against your walls, humming in approval when he felt you flutter around him the harder he shoved his fingers inside you.

“I’m yours Din, y-yours. Whatever you want, oh gods please more...need more, Din you make me f-feel so good.” Din keened at your words, curling his hand until his palm was passing deliciously over your clit as his fingers picked up the pace.

“That’s right sweet girl, you’re mine. Mine to fuck, mine to take whenever I want...mine to-” Din hesitated for a second, unable to voice his heart to you even though you’ve bared your soul for him. “Pal'vut at kar'taylir darasuum...kriffing gods you’re wet, so wet for me. Come on, cum for me again ner Cyare. Show me how good I make you feel. Show me how needy this little cunt is, fuck- I...can’t want to have you wrapped around my cock little one. Can’t wait to sink in this pussy, my sweet tight cunt, mark you with my seed, over and over again...fuck a load in you all night long till you can’t feel anything but my cum dripping down your thighs. Shit, I need you to cum, now!” Your mind became foggy with pleasure, unable to focus on anything but the words whispered into your ears as his thick fingers fucked into you. You grabbed the wrist of the hand wrapped around your throat, digging your nails into his skin as you came around his fingers. You almost fell forwards but Din held you flush against him, continuing to drive his digits into you and rub at your clit with this thumb until you were sobbing in his arms.

“Beautiful,” Din kissed your shoulder as he slowly inched his hands away from you before laying you down slowly. His eyes took in the flushed, wet skin of your back, chuckling with pride when he saw your legs shaking as little sobs escaped your lips. Your breaths came in shallow and quick, and you tried to silence your whines by biting into your wrists but then you felt Din slide his hand back and forth on your back as he laid next to you and you shivered under his touch because from the way he was moving closer to you and touching you, there was no way he was done just yet.

“You’re all I think about, every waking moment. It’s difficult to focus on anything else when you’re always in my mind Cyar'ika. I- I burn for you, for your lips to caress mine every moment, your eyes to never leave mine as I brand you, your skin against my own as you mark me with your touch. I- maker, I cannot think of a life without you here, with me…” Din thought he would have to force himself to say such things but he found it remarkably easy now that he had you here, responding so openly and shamelessly to him.

“Din,” you turned your head and shifted towards him, kissing the hand resting between the two of you before leaning your forehead against his and shutting your eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here, for as long as you’ll have me.” Din ceased all movement at your words and he looked away from where he was stroking your back, meeting your eyes and furrowing his eyebrows before you felt him grab your arm and pull you on top of him. You surprised gasp died in your throat when you felt Din wrap his arms around your back and bring you against him until you could feel his chest hairs tickling your nipples. You could feel his cock jutting against your core through his pants and as you rested your hands on his chest and looked to him, you saw the frown ease from his expression, replaced with something akin to reverence.

“I will have you until my dying breath Mesh’la. Let me show you how much I want you.” The force of his declaration hit you instantly and you pressed your lips against his just as you felt him rid himself of his pants. Din’s hands were roaming your back and you felt bolder with every caress, combing your fingers into his hair and pulling on it as he squeezed your ass and bucked into you. The growl emanating from his chest shot straight to your core and you raised yourself from him for a moment.

“Din, I want you. Crave to feel you inside me. Please, do it fast and don’t- don’t be gentle. Show me, show me how much you lo- want me.” Din’s heart skipped a beat at your words and he wasted no time, taking hold of his cock and teasing your clit with his leaking tip before slowly inching inside you. You shut your eyes and dug your nails into the back of his neck as he continued to sheath his dick deeper in your cunt. You could feel every ridge and pulsating vein dragging against your inner walls, finally allowing your lungs to breathe as you felt him nudge and twitch against that soft, spongy spot in your core.

Neither of you moved for a few moments, with Din trying to wrap his mind around finally becoming one with you and feeling you clench so sweetly around him. He was torn between fucking up into you without mercy and taking it nice and slow until he pushed you over the edge again. But then you were gyrating your hips and sighing his name on his cheek and he knew what he wanted.

Planting his feet on the damp covers, Din held you flush against him with one arm while resting his other hand on your thigh, nuzzling into the crook of your neck as he snapped his hips up before sinking into you again. You let out a surprised sob and rested your forehead against his shoulder, whispering more pleas against his skin and begging him to move.

The usually quiet man breathed the sweetest wishes in your ears, thrusting up into you with immense force that made you clench tighter around him. “Ni copad gar an te ca'nara Ad’ika, ni vercopa be gar anay ca. You have made a home for yourself inside my heart.” Din felt your shaky breath blow on his neck and it drove him mad with lust because he wanted to have you reacting to his touch so wantonly every minute of every day. His grip only tightened around you and he prayed you wouldn’t mind the bruises that would surely color your skin in the next few hours. He wasn’t planning on being gentle tonight, perhaps later, but not tonight, and he was going to ensure his touch would be visible for anyone that would speak with you tomorrow. Thoughts of the Marshal passed through his mind’s eye and he growled, pumping his cock into you harshly for some reassurance. You cried out his name over and over again, feeling your skin heat up at the declarations of love he was peppering on your skin because even though his words were gentle, his touches were far from it.

The squelching sounds of your cunt flooding Din’s thighs as he drove himself into you should have embarrassed you but you could tell he enjoyed knowing how wet you were for him from the way he continued to quicken the pace just to hear your juices flowing over him. His grip on you was becoming more painful the more you moved against each other but you couldn’t find it in yourself to let him know. He was letting go, showing you how much he wanted you, how hard he was for you, and you weren’t about to make him feel conscious over his affection.

“Maker...oh Din, Din I- you feel so good inside me. Filling me up like no one else. Could feel you so deep, gods, could feel you everywhere Din please- don’t stop. Don’t fucking stop, I need it. Need you, want you- want you to mark me, d-do whatever you want with me.” You had no hold over your own speech and weren’t sure if you were making any sense but Din moaned each time you praised him.

“Good girl, sweet girl...taking my cock so well, kriffing hell. Your- your pussy is squeezing the fuck out of me..could feel every tight inch of you stroking my cock Cyar’ika. Ah pfassk...you’re- you’re perfection.” Din moved the hand around your back up to your neck, pulling on your hair and pressing his lips with yours as his cock throbbed inside you. You whined as his tongue roughly swirled around your own, barely able to breathe as he continued to snap his hips against you and suddenly feeling a rush of relief as his navel rubbed at your clit until you came around him. Din broke the kiss, screaming expletives in his tongue as the force of your orgasm pushed his cock out of you. You shuddered as you gushed on his dick, wrapping your arms around his neck when he forced his cock into your tight cunt again.

You were so overcome with emotions, so lost in Din’s scent mixing with your own, and his touch leaving bruises on your skin, that you didn’t notice the faint sounds of footsteps coming up the ramp and halting in the middle of the ship right in front of the door. But Din noticed, managing to look up just in time to see Cobb standing in the middle of the ship and staring with wide eyes at the scene unfolding in front of him.

Something completely otherworldly took over the Mandalorian and he quickly sat up, expertly moving the two of you around until he was kneeling on the covers with you straddling his thighs. He smiled against your shoulder, allowing your hair to hide his face as he grabbed both of your hips and fucked up into you.

He could vaguely see the Marshal and was surprised that he hadn't dropped the bottle of drink in his hand just yet. You wailed into the night air, arms keeping you stead in Din’s arms as he forced you on his pulsating dick over and over again.

“Tell me...tell me Cyare, tell me how much you love it when I fuck you. How much you need my cock like the filthy little cockslut you are. Go on sweet girl, grind that little clit on me. Fucking tell me ner Ad’ika.” Din smacked your ass twice, chuckling when your moans grew more lewd with every touch he laid on you.

“I- I- ahhh love your cock...oh maker, no one fucks me like you. N-no one makes me c-cum like you. Fuck me harder D- ahhh,” Din bit down on your shoulder to prevent you from saying his name, looking through the mess of your hair and watching as his audience remained incapable of moving.

“I own this pretty little pussy. Pffassk- ride me harder Mesh’la. You’re such a good girl, could feel your cunt drenching my thighs, the smell of you is driving me mad. Fuck- keep that pretty mouth open to me when I’m fucking you, let me hear you scream for me.”

“Please- please...fuck me harder, ruin my pussy. Gods- I..I’m so close please. Tell me you own me, tell me I’m you’re sweet girl. Please- I want to be good for you, want you to cum inside me Din...cum inside me. I need it, need you to fuck me like you own me and mark me, make me yours Mando. Cum in me, please-”

“Ah fuck you’re my sweet little girl aren’t you? Wanting me to fuck a load in you, cum in you all night long and keep my seed in that tight cunt? That’s it sweetheart, I’m so fucking hard for you. Could feel you clenching around me...be a good girl and cum again ner kar'ta. Fuck, yes yes you feel so good wrapped around my cock Cyare you’re going to make me cum. Spill my seed in that tight, wet pussy, fill you up till you can taste it in your throat. Shit, and- and I’m going to keep fucking you sweet girl, till my cum is sliding down your thighs. My little fucktoy- come on, come on love, cum for me. Cum on me, drench me again. Mix your juices with me.” Din watched as Cobb finally had the mind to leave and he almost laughed at how the man almost tripped on his own foot as he sprinted out of the ship. He pushed you on your back and spread your thighs open, resting his weight on the arms around your head as he thrust in a few more times before he felt you clench around him. Leaning down, Din took a pert nipple in his mouth and sucked on it, growling into your skin as he came deep in your pussy, painting your walls with long strings of his seed until he couldn’t breathe. He’d never cum this hard before and was sure to tell you when you had the state of mind to pay him any semblance of attention.

Din continued to lazily push into you, your words from earlier replaying in his mind as he felt you quiver around his softening cock. You were still coming down from your high and twitched occasionally when you felt him throb inside you. There was a pleasant kind of warmth washing over you and you sighed happily when you realized he was still bucking against you to push his cum in your belly.

“D-din...you’re filling me up so good. Feel so full ah- gah.” He laughed when your body shook, wrapping his arms around you and flipping you around until you were laying on his chest. You kissed his jaw and his neck, moaning in unison when you felt his dick rub against that sweet spot inside you.

“That’s because I’ve never cum this hard sweet girl. You’ve milked me dry Cyare. Could feel you sucking my seed out of me.” He was amazed at your obvious embarrassment, wanting to tease you about it but choosing to wait for later instead.

Din rubbed at your back, kissing your forehead as he whispered sweet things in your ears and smiling when you nipped at his neck some more.

“Promise me you’ll never leave.” Din’s quiet voice broke the silence and you pushed up to look into his eyes as you responded. “I’m not going anywhere, even if you tell me to go. I’ll stay here, always. I promise.” You kissed him gently and felt his pulse beneath your fingers calm at your words.

Not much time has passed before Din had you on your knees in front of him, fucking your mouth and shoving you down on his cock until you gagged and his seed slipped from the corner of your mouth, mixing with your spit as it fell down your breasts. You lost count of how many times he brought you pleasure, and you made a mental note to ask him how he managed to fuck you all night long. You weren’t sure it was possible for a man to cum this many times over the course of one night but you had a feeling Din was not like anyone else. A man who has been touch starved for almost three decades must have had a lot of pent-up aggression that he needed to release. And you would gladly help him in any shape or form through that.

And when he wasn’t pumping your cunt full of his cum, he was nuzzling into your neck and laying kisses across your arms, making sure he caressed every inch of your skin. You shouldn’t have been surprised that Din loved to snuggle with you but you did find it hilarious that such a big and scary Mandalorian whimpered when you licked down his neck as you nestled into his arms. You wouldn’t tell him just yet but besides his rough grasps and his filthy words, you loved to taste the saltiness of his skin and from the looks of it, the feelings were mutual because at some point in the night, he’d told you of all the times he had to lock himself up in the refresher and try his hardest to not think of your sweaty limbs entangling with his own as he kissed you.

By the time the two of you made it outside the following day, the twin suns had already been in the middle of the sky, scorching rays of heat on everyone across Mos Pelgo. You tried your hardest not to walk too funny, mostly because it made Din apologize every now and then, but it was difficult when you could still feel traces of his touch on you. You told him you needed him to stop making it obvious but realized he was apologizing out of regret not out of humor. It took you all of the afternoon to convince him that you were feeling more than okay and that you’d asked him for this. And when he didn’t seem to stop, you teased him and told him that you knew he secretly loved watching you wobble from side to side.

This all, however, peaked when you walked into the cantina and tried to play Sabbac with Cobb Vanth and the others. You could tell that the Marshal was avoiding all conversation with you, going out of his way to pretend you weren’t even sitting on the table, let alone the room. You hoped that Mando hadn’t spoken with him or anything and decided to call it quits earlier in the night. When you did make it back to the ship and saw Din cleaning his weapons, you made sure the ship was secure before moving to sit on the bed across from him.

“Did you talk to Cobb today?” You gauged his reaction, already sensing that something was wrong when you saw him nervously clench his jaw before rubbing furiously at the beskar weapon.

“No, why do you ask?” Din wished he hadn’t already taken off his helmet because as soon as he responded, you knew he wasn’t telling you the whole truth.

“Din?”

He looked up at you and cleared his throat before speaking.

“He- he saw us...last night. I- I must have forgotten to raise the ramp and-” Din took a deep breath when you shot up from the cot and began to pace back and forth.

“HE WHAT?”

“We were...I couldn’t- there wasn’t a chance I could…you felt too good around me Ad’ika I- I couldn’t stop. Not when you were clenching around me so tightly. Now when you were finally in my arms. I-” He stood up and walked towards you, taking your hands into his and kissing both of your wrists. You flushed at his words and looked up at him, only to find him blushing under your gaze.

“You did it on purpose didn't you? You wanted him to see...to watch as you- as we...as I said-” Din didn’t let you finish the sentence, leaning down and molding his lips with yours as he walked you back to his bed. He pushed you down on the covers still holding your scents, his hold hardening the more you moaned against him. Before he could strip you of your clothes, you pushed him off and stuck out your finger in warning.

“Oh no you don’t. Go raise the ramp.”

“You’re giving me orders now Mesh’la?” Din raised an eyebrow at you as he got off of you and walked around the bed, halting at the doorstep to look back at you.

“Never…”