#i did a version of this where din also had several scars but it was too visually busy

[beskarfrog]

Din, you're trembling. Sorry, you're just...so much.

[motleymoose]

Homecoming Pt 4: Nevvarro Ch 5

Chapter 5 The Peace Within

Fandom: The Mandalorian, Star Wars Characters: Paz Viszla (Paz Vizla), Gender-Neutral Reader Words: 1.8k+ Warnings: Blood, Fluff!!!

Summary:

A little calm in the calamity.

Notes:

See? See?!? I TOLD you there was gonna be some happiness… sorta!!!

Thanks for reading! Look out for Part 5!!!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Homecoming Masterlist

Sprinting down the lonely hallway, I ignored the blood dripping down my face, allowing my instincts rather than sight to guide me out of the Clan’s maze of tunnels. I didn’t know where I was, or where exactly I was going, but I knew I had to be out of the covert, away from Din Djarin and everything he believed in.

Vaguely aware of the shadowy forms darting out of the way as I passed, I kept my head down and ran. I didn’t need to breathe, didn’t need to think. All I needed to do was run. Run and forget and never feel again.

The whispering shadows thinned. The air grew cooler. But I let it all go, the only sensations I wanted were my heart beating in my chest and the soft soles of my boots slapping the smooth concrete. I didn’t stop to catch my breath, didn’t slow down to find my bearings. I ran as if it were the only thing keeping me alive.

I was so caught up in the thrill of flight that I didn’t notice the floor gradually slanting upwards. The toes of my boots caught on the treads carved into the concrete, a change from the smoothness of the hallways. But I didn’t stop to look. I just kept on running.

Until I reached a dead end. Well, not exactly a dead end, but a door. A door, guarded by two Mandalorians casually lounging against a scattering of crates. Blocking my way to freedom.

I skidded to a stop, blowing like a bellows. Sweat plastered my jumpsuit to my body, blood trickling down the back of my throat. I tried to swallow, but choked instead.

“Udesii! Me’bana? Me’viinii gar teh, vaar’ika?” the same gigantic blue-gray warrior from before asked calmly, a large gloved hand extended to show he didn’t mean any harm. He approached me slowly, a wounded and frightened creature ready to bolt. Wild and feral, my eyes were surely rolling white and my nostrils flaring in distress.

“I need… to-to get out… Now,” I panted, licking at a split in my bottom lip. My tongue came away metallic and salty, bile rising in response. The adrenaline began to ebb, and I doubled over, the pain from my injuries unfurling themselves in thorny red waves. I couldn’t help but groan.

“Easy, vod’ika. Breathe.” The blue-gray warrior angled his helmet towards his partner, speaking a clipped version of Mando’a I couldn’t understand. With a nod, the other Mandalorian took off at a light jog down the tunnel, disappearing around a corner.

The echoing bootsteps faded to nothing. His attention back on me, the large warrior squatted in front of me, tilting his visor until he knew I could see him. “What’s the matter?” he asked, his warm voice a soothing balm to my jangled nerves.

I didn’t know this warrior, and he sure as hell didn’t know me. What gave him the fragging right to ask me this?

“Naas,” I replied dryly. Mandalorians asked to find out things in a literal sense. I didn’t feel like telling him anything.

But he could sense that. “Ibac’jehaat, ad’ika. You don’t have to tell me,” he said. Unfolding himself to his imposing height, he stood straight once more and motioned me over to the crates. “Come, atinad’ika. Let me take a look at that naas on your face.”

Spent from fighting and running and ignoring the confusion of emotions, I dragged myself to the crates and hoisted onto one. I sullenly stared into space as the blue-gray Mando dug through one of the other crates, shifting the contents this way and that in his search. Soon, he held a medkit proudly aloft and plopped it beside me.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked, only half-joking. I turned my attention to his hands, unable to trust anything about him, even after the kindness he’d shown me.

“Not in the least; I never could pass my basic med training,” he deadpanned as he peeled off his gloves. His hands, I was surprised to note, were a deep golden russet bordering on bronze, strong and well-defined and peppered with thin white scars. Long fingers, the pinkie and ring finger on his left hand crooked at the first and second knuckles as if they had been broken and then healed improperly, looked warm and inviting, and I had to stop myself from reaching over to trace my fingers over the backs of his hands. He angled his visor at me. I furrowed my brow and coughed, hoping he hadn’t noticed my staring.

I was rewarded with a glob of phlegm from the depths of my guts. It was unpleasant, and I gagged a little at the taste.

He must have taken it as doubt, for he tried again to assuage my imagined fears. “Really, you don’t have to worry. I can take care of a few scrapes.” The smile in his voice sent a tingle down my spine, building on the off-centering feeling of wanting to be taken care of. By him.

I swallowed the blood and the bile and the need for comfort, choosing instead to tentatively meet his gaze. “You don’t have to…” I stopped, weakly gesturing at my face with a bloodied hand.

The warrior shrugged, busying himself with the medkit latch. “We take care of our own. Now hold still, this is gonna sting.”

“But-”

“K’uur, atinad’ika. Let me do my work in peace.”

Several quick jabs with a syringe and a liberal application of bacta gel later, and I was physically feeling a little less bruised.

Packing the unused med supplies back into the kit, he pushed the trash aside and joined me on the crate, legs splayed out in front of him, boots windshield-wipering back and forth to a beat only he could hear. The quiet between us settled around our bodies in thick, feathery layers.

I could say it was a relief to sit in companionable silence. After everything I had fought against, after all the fear and the anger and the frustration that had built up over the last week, it should have been nice to just sit and not be asked of anything. But as all things with my mind, I wouldn’t cooperate.

Tense and ready to spring at the slightest provocation, I gripped the square edge of the crate, my knuckles turning white and my nails bending against the hard plastic. The silence was nerve-wracking. It got under my skin, made me itchy and restless. With no distractions and little ambient sound, the words began to fall out of my mouth, fuzzy and coarse and prickly.

“I only wanted to get off that doshing moon,” I began, voice low and grainy. “I thought… I hoped that I could. With… him.” I couldn’t bring myself to utter Din’s name. Even though we may have shared the same adoptive buir, I didn’t have to like the guy, refused to show him much respect. Not after Bosph. Not after all of our fights. “Seeing him, I thought… I thought all Mandalorians were like my buir.”

Humming softly, the blue-gray Mando cocked his helmet in understanding. “Munit tome’tayl, skotah iisa,” he replied.

I laughed feebly. “Yeah. That he is.” Slowly, I unclamped my fingers from the side of the crate and laid them, palms up, in my lap. I stared blankly at them as I continued. “Sometimes I get so… so angry, that I can’t hold it in. The more I shove it back, the sharper it gets, until, well.” I pointed to my face again. “Can’t say what he did was unwarranted. I’ve been a bit of a fragging ass, despite his best efforts at keeping me alive.”

It was the giant’s turn to laugh, the gravelly chuckle buzzing pleasantly through the modulator.

Sighing heavily, I curled my fingers into my palms, briefly digging my nails into the oil-stained flesh. “But he-he had no right. In bringing me here. I didn’t choose to be cared for by a war criminal.” I turned my hands over, rolling the knuckles into the tops of my thighs, palms slicking with sweat as I remembered. “This isn’t my cause, you… you aren’t my people.” Biting my lip, I screwed my eyes shut, the tell-tale pricklings of tears welling behind the lids frightening me more than getting caught in a blaster fight. I was not going to cry. Not now, not in front of this warrior. Not ever.

“Let me out… please. I can’t be here. I-I don’t belong.”

The words caught him off guard as much as they did me. Shifting his body to face me, the Mandalorian brought a bare hand up to gingerly cup my chin, tipping my head back until I was forced to open my eyes and look at him. “Don’t belong? Atinad’ika,” he said quietly, dropping the hand to my shoulder with a squeeze. “Gar tal’din naas jaon’yc.”

“Don’t give me that line of kovedee’osik,” I said cooly, shrugging off his comforting hand, twisting away from his warmth. There was that biting anger again, rearing its ugly head at any sign of pity or sympathy. “I don’t want to belong. I’m just fine by myself,” I lied, mostly to myself. “I’m going.”

The blue-gray Mandalorian sat staring at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then, slapping his beskared thighs with his beautiful hands, he stood up and strode purposefully to the door. “We can’t hold you against your will, atinad’ika,” he sighed, sliding back bolts with practiced ease. “Even if you don’t believe you are part of this Clan, we will always accept you back. No matter what happens out there.” Finished with the bolts, he turned to the control panel to punch in the code. “But one thing, atinad’ika.” His dark tan fingers hovered over the release button, helmet tilted towards me. “We aren’t the only ones who know about your buir. There are… other forces out there that also search for him. And if they find out that you are his…”

I froze. Frag. I hadn’t even thought about someone else out there to get me. “What would you have me do?” I asked, swallowing the cracks in my voice.

Lowering his hand, the Mandalorian turned to me, tensed as if ready for a struggle. “Are you sure you want to know?” he murmured, his vocoder barely registering the rich depths of his voice.

“Elek,” I replied nervously, knowing all too well what he was going to ask of me.

“Stay.”

______________________________________________

Notes:

Udesii! Me’bana? Me’viinii gar teh, vaar’ika? - Take it easy (Calm down!)! What’s happening (what’s happened?)? What are you running from, pipsqueak? [lit. What running you from, runt? - mashed the Mando’a] vod’ika. - little sibling ad’ika - little one, son, daughter, of any age - also used informally to adults much like *lads* or *guys* Naas - Nothing Ibac’jehaat, ad’ika - That is a lie, little one [what even is sentence structure] atinad’ika - [not not a word] little stubborn one (atin - stubborn; ad’ika - little one) K’uur, atinad’ika. - Hush, little stubborn one. Munit tome’tayl, skotah iisa, - long memory, short fuse - said to be the typical Mando mindset Gar tal’din naas jaon’yc.. - Your past is unimportant. (lit. Your bloodline is nothing important) [butchers the Mando’a] kovedee’osik - bullshit (kovedee - cow-like creature the size of a bison; osik - shit {or dung, but insulting-like}) [just gonna keep on making up words until someone corrects me] Elek - Yes