#ahhhhhhhhhh i love this painting so much | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kyberblade · 1 year

Text

Back To You (Din x Reader) - Part 16

A/N: Whew. This is 100% my own brain child, as in no show plots. It’s just domestic fluff and fluff fluff and action and shenanigans and revelations and ahhhhhhhhhh! I hope you enjoy. There is no show dialogue in this one. (ALSO! Episode 3 tonight?! And also my return from the world of shadow silence…. We’re celebrating a lot here today!) Also, once again, there is some lore in this that @writerlyhabits wrote in a fantastic short, and I loved it so much, I asked if I could use it.

(This takes place right where the other one left off and is in between episode 2x5/13, The Jedi, and episode 2x6/14, The Tragedy.)

I do not own Star Wars or it’s characters. Sadly. But I carry them in my heart. Does that count for something? My soul says yes.

Warnings: Tooth rotting fluff, Grogu being the cutest thing you ever did see, and Din is once again a warning in and of himself in this one. Typical show violence. Swearing. Space swearing. Grogu is a menace. Arguing? Mando’a.

Word count: 17,396 (I said what I said.)

As always, thanks to @grippingbeskar for encouraging me, looking over this for me, and being the one to introduce me to Din fanfiction in the first place, getting me hooked. You are fantastic and I always love our chats.

Thank you to @fordo-kixed-rex for your endless hours helping me over goodness knows how long since I started this, helping me come up with SW-sy names, for reading this over for me and letting me know I’m not crazy. And @deceiver-of-gods for helping with the Mando’a. (Any mistakes are my own.) (Also, Huttese is a crazy hard language and I don’t know why it’s Din’s go to.)

Previous | Series Masterlist | Next

Xxx

The Crest was orbiting Tatooine, some final checks in progress as you watched Din from your copilot’s seat.

Grogu babbled something quietly from his seat to your right, making incessant grabby gestures toward the crate at your feet you’d brought up from the lower level. Soft grunts of frustration painted his string of gibberish in his efforts now and then.

Looking down to the box, amusement colored your features. “What, ad’ika? You want one of these?” Reaching down you pulled up a ration packet, holding it between your thumb and index finger tantalizingly. Letting it dangle as his eyes grew wider, darting between you and the packet and back again in a never ending circuit, you laughed softly. (“Little one.”)

“Here you go.” Tearing it open, you handed it to him, stopping just short of his outstretched hands and pulling it back a little. Eyebrow raised, you tilted your head down to look down your nose in warning. “Slow.”

Grogu just closed his mouth, his large eyes blinking up at you in understanding as he gently took the packet, making one last circuit between it and you before plopping into his seat with a soft coo. He ate like it had been months since the last time, not a handful of minutes, making you shake your head before settling back in your seat.

“Why are you feeding him?”

Din’s voice pulled your attention to him, your head snapping up from looking at your lap as you brushed crumbs from the packet away. “Oh, this is just a snack. I already gave him dinner an hour ago.”

A moment of silence settled between you before Din sighed heavily, his shoulders rising and falling with the effort. “I gave him dinner two hours ago,” he said, voice resigned as his head tilted to the side.

All you could do was blink. “Din, two hours ago we were loading up the Crest in Peli’s hangar. The hour before that we were in the market for last minute supplies, I got him fresh food there. Three whole frogs. He’d already eaten.”

After another long moment as Din looked between the child while he munched away happily, then back to you, he sighed yet again. Bringing his right hand up to worry back and forth against his forehead, the leather of his glove squeaked against the beskar with each pass. “Well he sure was acting hungry.”

You nodded, trying not to smile like you wanted to, everything about this conversation amusing you more than it should. “Yeah, acting.” Looking over at the tiny green gremlin, the smile won over as it climbed up the side of your face. “I've said it before, and l'lI say it again - where does it all go?”

“What if he's having a growth spurt?”

Turning back to face Din, you studied his body language, not sure if he was joking or not. His voice sounded serious enough, but that could just be sarcasm - he tended to do that. Often. And sometimes his dry tone just came off as not so much a joke, but entirely serious. It could lead to some hilarious moments, but right now, it just made your head hurt. He gave away nothing in his posture, sitting mostly relaxed like normal in his seat, so you just decided to go with it.

“He's a fifty year old man. How much growing does he have left in him? Look at him.” You gestured to the tiny green ward as he disappeared inside the ration packet to get the crumbs at the very bottom. “How tall is he going to grow that he needs,” glancing down at the crate, you did some quick math before lifting your gaze back to his visor, “seven ration packets in that amount of time?”

“You don't know,” he was quick to answer.

Doing a double take as you went to look back at the kid, you raised your brows at him, your voice miraculously low and even. “I know enough.”

“Do you?”

Crossing your arms over your chest, you leaned back in your seat, getting comfortable. The way your head was tilted back against the headrest, you were looking down your nose at Din. “Well neither do you, if that's your argument.”

Din’s voice was eerily calm. “I'm not arguing.”

You couldn’t help but snort out a laugh, letting your eyes close for a moment as your head lolled to the side, facing the kid before you turned a sarcastic glare back on your Mandalorian. “This is the definition of arguing, Din.”

“I…”

A small plop drew both of your attention away, looking down to find the kid had dropped out of his seat, had pulled another packet out of the crate, and was trying to make a getaway with it; standing in the middle of the cockpit with a packet almost bigger than he was.

You both said firmly in unison, “No!”

Grogu froze, turning to face you both and promptly falling into a seated position on the floor. Slowly he pulled the packet closer to his chest, looking between the two of you with large seemingly innocent eyes that only blinked maybe twice as they peered into your souls.

“Kid…” Din’s exasperated sigh made you roll your eyes, turning your focus back on him as you sat on the edge of your seat facing sideways toward the child.

“Din, that's not going to do anything.”

He threw his hands up in the air, letting them slap back down on his thighs loudly as he leveled the stare of his visor on you. “Then you try, oh wise one.”

Making a face at him that was probably childish, to which he slightly tilted his head in response, you did what he asked. “Grogu. Hey. You don't need- Grogu?”

When you turned, you found an empty cockpit, no child, no packet, just the tips of his ears disappearing below the hatch to the lower level. “Great. You scared him off, Din.” You copied him, tossing your hands up and letting them come down with a slap.

“I- No, you- This....” The following silence was so intense, it had to be something they taught him in Mandalorian training.

Soft cries of frustration came from below as you knew Grogu was trying to wrestle the packet open, but you used it as unneeded fuel for the fire. “Look what you did now, you've upset him.”

The scathing look you could feel along the lines of your face from under the helmet was not something you would forget anytime soon. It was so intense, so practiced, it had to be the second step they taught all young Mandalorians, right after silence.

Then came the third step, which you had no doubt Din himself probably taught other Mandalorians. Turning quickly in the pilot’s seat, he faced the controls, every line of him rigid as he jabbed at some buttons unnecessarily, the ship still floating aimlessly in orbit. The silence was thick as he pouted for a long moment.

Finally, taking a deep breath, you sighed. “Look. Just... Just tell me the next time you feed him, okay? In fact, tell me every time. I'll tell you, too. That way we don't run out of supplies, and he doesn't turn into a BB droid, rolling around here.”

Din’s body deflated as he chuckled softly, giving his head a gentle shake at the mental image you’d painted.

Smiling, you went on. “After all, these are the types of things you should probably tell your wife….”

He groaned, tossing his head back against the seat and giving it another gentle shake as he stared at the ceiling.

“I mean, that’s the kind of thing she deserves to know.”

“Will you drop it already?” Din turned his visor toward you. “Please?” His voice was somewhere between annoyed and pleading. “I’ve told you, it was just a slip up, I didn’t…. There’s a lot more…. It’s a much more involved process if that were ever to really happen.”

“Well good,” you gave him one single nod in a definitive end to the conversation, and he turned back to the console after returning it tentatively. You smirked as you added, “Because I’m not that easy.”

He deflated, his shoulders slumping forward as a breath rushed out of him, his hands flattening against the console as he leaned into it slightly.

Din visibly relaxed, his head coming down, beskar clad forehead thumping once softly on the console between his hands when you quietly concluded with a grin, “Now I’m done.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled against the controls, his vocoder gently buzzing against the hard surface. Lifting his head suddenly as he took a deep breath, he resumed his assessment of various buttons and switches like always, as if nothing had happened.

“Where do we go after Tython?” You asked gently, settling back into your chair with a quiet huff of air.

Grogu squeaked in distress from below, so you reached out your hand, a lone packet flying up the ladder into your palm with ease. An indignant squawk floated up through the opening shortly after to meet it, and you turned your head toward the hatch ever so slightly. “I’m opening it for you, ad’ika. This is your last one.” Tearing it open, you mumbled, “Maybe for your life, I haven’t decided. At least for today.”

Din chuckled, making you smile as you continued. “You want some? Come back up here. That little evasive maneuver was impressive, but I want you where I can see you.”

Companionable silence settled between you while you waited for a response from the kid. Finally, you mumbled to Din with a wink, “Kaysh guur' skraan.” (“He loves his food.”)

“Kaysh emuuri epar,” he agreed. (“He likes to eat.”)

Babbling that sounded an awful lot like grumbling began to get slowly closer, so you nodded for Din to continue.

“I don’t know. I had hoped maybe we could talk with the Mandalorians, if we could find them, and they would have more information. I still believe-”

“Oh!” Your eyes wide, you stared vacantly through the viewport before they scrunched up tight and your palm came up to smack your forehead. Cradling your head in your hand, you rolled it slowly back and forth as you mumbled, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner.”

“Of what?” Din’s words registered just as you felt a tiny tug on your pant leg. Looking down, you saw Grogu looking up at you somewhat sheepishly, his large eyes blinking a bit too much as he worried his lips in a meek expression.

Offering him a soft smile, you lowered the packet down to him, laughing quietly at the pure joy that overtook his face, and the eagerness he snatched the packet with. Not even bothering to get back in his chair, he plopped down where he was and dug in.

Meeting Din’s patient gaze again, you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “I know someone on Coruscant who might know where some Mandalorians are. Or at least something about them.”

“How?” You’d half expected him to sound accusatory or suspicious, but he just seemed genuinely curious.

“His name is Nem, a patron at the bar. He works seasonally on some backwater forest planet…. Sorgan?” Din sat up straighter, but you thought nothing of it. “Then comes back for a few months, always stops in for a drink. In fact, once he told me all about a Mandalorian in shiny armor who helped a local village fend off raiders, not knowing I knew said Mando.” You grinned, leaning in almost conspiratorially. “Or that he came into the bar right after him.”

Din’s breathing had gotten rapid, but he said nothing. So after you narrowed your eyes at him for a moment, waiting, you went on.

“Said something about how the Mando had a child and almost ended up staying in the village long term.” You looked up at him curiously. “I hadn’t met the kid yet, so I didn’t know what to think at that point, but I remember feeling kinda sad that I….” Turning your attention down to Grogu for something easier to focus on, you swallowed once, your voice dropping slightly. “Like I almost lost you.” Lifting your eyes back to his visor after a moment, you couldn’t help the sad smile. “If you’d stayed there, I wouldn’t have seen you anymore.”

He was quick to try and fix things, jumping in with, “I would have-” but you didn’t let him get far.

“Din, I’m not stupid. I know you….” You looked at your hands in your lap, your voice small. “I’m sure she was worth it.”

Silence. More silence. It was stifling and thick, and so quiet it was loud. It filled the cockpit in an instant and seemed to suck out all the air, everything you needed to breathe, to exist comfortably gone faster than a sigh. Even the Crest seemed to know, the beeping of instruments seemingly quieted to honor this mandated…. silence.

Finally something breaks, something gives, coloring the air with the sound of life, the contours of living. Din took a deep breath, then paused, like he didn't actually know what to say. His gloves creaked as his hands opened and closed in nerves, winding tighter each time. Finally, he found what he was looking for somewhere, his hands opening, fingers spread wide, his voice uncharacteristically low and quiet.

“There…. There was a widow. She took care of Grogu like her own, her daughter loved him, and he didn’t stop smiling the whole time we were there. Things just…. Worked.” He slowly sat back in his seat, hands smoothing up along the beskar on his thighs, contemplating his next words. Finally, he looked at you again, his head cocked to the side just slightly as he continued honestly. “I thought about staying….” That’s as long as he could hold your gaze before he turned back to look across the cockpit at nothing in particular. “But in the end I decided to leave Grogu there, where he was happy. He doesn’t deserve this life….” Din stared straight forward for a long moment, his hand clenched into a tight fist where it rested on his thigh. “And I don’t deserve that one.”

Before you could say anything to disagree, he went on.

“Omera agreed to take him in while I left. To continue to care for him as if he were her own.” He stopped, his shoulders sagging slightly as he realized what he’d let slip.

“That was her name?” Din seemed stuck, so you repeated it quietly. “Omera?” He nodded after a moment of hesitation, making you smile softly, your voice low to match. “Omera,” you whispered the name again, letting it settle comfortably under your skin. “Beautiful.”

Din shifted in his seat before he continued. “But then a hunter found us, and the kid wasn’t safe anywhere. And everyone there was in danger if we stayed.” He turned back to the viewport. “So we left.”

Watching the stars crawl lazily by, you let the silence sit between you until you couldn’t take it anymore.

“Nem also mentioned you were with a Rebel Dropper from Alderaan….” Your eyes must have widened comically large as you turned back up toward his visor, his chair swiveling slowly toward you with a long sigh. “Was that Cara?”

He nodded, his head lolling back against the headrest of his seat with a soft thump.

You began to giggle. “He mentioned that the people said you had a very…. Abrupt personality.” He grunted. “I’m going to have to ask Cara about this next time we see her.” He sighed again, his head hanging slightly with a gentle shake making you begin to smile. “In the meantime, we have to get in contact with Nem. The only way I know how is at the bar. He’s due to stop by anytime now-”

“No. It’s too dangerous.” Din’s visor was leveled on you, keeping you pinned to your chair before you could get to your feet.

“Din, come on!” You protested. “I can finally help!” Standing, you began to pace the small expanse of the cockpit, arms gesturing as you spoke. Grogu looked up at you from his perch on the floor while he continued to munch away. “We could make a plan past Tython in case that doesn’t work out. If you're worried about fuel, I have some more credits stored in my apartment - Don’t look at me like that. You don’t live in that part of town and not take some precautions. I will grab them.”

Din rose to his feet, stopping you from continuing your back and forth in the limited space. “Someone could be watching-”

“Then you can watch for me.” You smirked. Turning, you waved your hand for the doors to open to the hatch, Din right on your heels.

“And what if someone comes for you?”

Scooping up the kid who clutched his packet tightly to his chest, you started down the ladder toward the lower level, pausing just before you were too low to meet Din’s gaze one more time. “You do what you do best.”

Xxx

Walking along the lower levels of Coruscant, the grimy streets and heavy air surrounded you at every turn, and you’d never wished to be away from it more. Having finally experienced fresh air and space, this entire planet felt like a prison now. You understood Din’s distaste a little bit more.

He had left Grogu on the ship, both of you opting to get in and get out as fast as you could, stopping by your apartment first. Din was right on your heels, keeping his head on a swivel and your arm in his grip, ready to pull you behind him and to cover at a moments notice.

Stopping a few feet in front of your building, you narrowed your eyes at a woman watching you intently a short ways down the walkway.

Din’s hand slowly left your arm and moved to his blaster, but you reached out to stop him, your hand over his.

“Mom?”

You felt him freeze under your touch. “Your mother?” His voice was in your ear.

The woman said your name barely above a whisper, her voice weak in disbelief.

“Mama!” You breathed, rushing over and wrapping her in a firm embrace.

“Oh!” She grunted in surprise, voice strained as she laughed softly. “A little too tight, firefly.” In your peripherals you saw Din tilt his head just slightly at the endearment.

“What are you doing here?” You mumbled into her shoulder, not ready to let go.

Her hand smoothed over your back comfortingly. “I come by here sometimes hoping I’ll see you.”

Releasing your mother, you went to introduce her to Din, but she was quick to stop you, waving her hand for you to hush. “It’s not safe for you here.” Her eyes darted into all the dark corners as she spoke, waiting for something. “If I thought of looking here, so have they.”

You narrowed your brows in question, stepping closer to her as you lowered your voice further. “Who is ‘they’?” Din’s hand softly came to rest on your lower back.

Looking both ways with wide eyes, her gaze finally landed on you, darting to the Mandalorian at your back before coming back to you. “I assume you came here on a commercial flight?”

Closing your eyes as you tried to wrap your mind around the change of subject and gently shaking your head, you raised one brow skeptically as you peered at her. “No, we have our own ship. Well, he does. I pilot it sometimes, though.”

She smiled, her demeanor softening for a moment, the tension easing from her shoulders as she stood taller. “You finally learned how to fly. Your father would be so proud.”

The thought of your father right now amused you, thinking of him standing here, as he stood toe to toe with Din, leaning his head back to hold his gaze. Hands probably on his hips as he issued some absurd warning only the truly brave or truly stupid would say to a Mandalorian. “How is dad?”

“I’ll meet you on your ship.” She turned to look at Din straight on for the first time in this conversation, without a single flinch. “Where are you docked?”

He looked at you before answering. “Lower levels, not far from the bar.”

“I know the one,” she instantly confirmed, shooing both of you back across the street. “I’ll meet you there later and bring your father.”

Din nodded, telling her the number of the spot he docked in. Standing back upright, he looked side to side every few seconds as he ushered you to the other side of the street.

“So what, we just go wait on the ship now?”

He merely nodded again, making you roll your eyes as you turned back to face forward, his hand once again on your lower back, gently guiding you toward the Crest.

“Yay,” you mumbled sarcastically.

Xxx

As you walked through the rows of ships toward the Crest, silence wrapped around both of you like a blanket. But not a warm, comforting feeling like the one you kept in the cockpit, no. This was nearly suffocating, too tight and constricting, heavy.

“Din-”

“Slana. Kemi ogir,” he said in a low voice near your ear, cutting you off with a slight gesture forward with his head, his grip on your arm tightening. (“Go. Walk there.”)

“Me'bana?” You lowered your voice to match, keeping the slight stumble from your stride as you tried to keep up with his quick steps. The switch to Mando’a was second nature, now. (“What's happening?”)

He hesitated for a moment before lowering his voice further, so much so, you could barely hear him. “Ashnar ru’shekemi mhi.” (“Someone has followed us.”)

“Osik!” You hissed, starting to turn to look over your shoulder. (“Shit!”)

He gripped your arm tighter, giving it a firm tug back towards him, making you face back forward. “Don’t turn around. They don’t know we know yet.”

Your face screwed up in confusion. “How do you know?”

Din pressed something on the side of his helmet for his display as he explained, “They keep getting closer. No one who knows their target knows they’re there gets that close. That’s just stupid.”

You let out a soft snort through your nose. “Not everyone is you, Din.”

He turned to look at you for the first time in the conversation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You shrugged, turning to meet his gaze with a small smile. “Not everyone will do the smart thing.”

He looked back forward with a sigh. “Unfortunately.”

Still looking at him, your smile grew. “I think you mean fortunately. If everyone did the smart thing, we’d be in so much more trouble, and you’d be out of a job.”

“You make a good point,” Din muttered quietly after a moment, making you chuckle.

Turning your focus back forward after a quick glance to your side, you fell in step with Din once again. “Vaabi meg gar vaabi.” You jutted your chin to the side to indicate what you meant. (“Do what you do.”)

His visor turned almost imperceptibly to the right, before coming back onto you, his grip tightening further. “Keep walking, go past the Crest. When we’re one ship away, shoot one of your whistling bird blanks at the panel under the cockpit. It’s still loose, and it’ll fall, distracting them long enough for me to disappear. I’ll get behind them, take care of it. Just keep walking. Whatever you do, don’t look back.”

You stopped moving to stare at him, but he kept pulling you along. “Why? Din, I’ve seen you do worse before. I’ve done worse before.”

His modulator was right by your ear as he kept his voice low. “That was out of necessity. This is-”

“Also necessary.” You didn’t bother to keep your voice low anymore.

“For me.” That was the same tone he’d used when you’d accidentally pushed him on Nevarro and he’d told you to get on the ship, the one you’d only ever heard for bounties. He sighed, his voice softening. “Mesh’la, please. For me. I’m just trying to protect you. Listen just this once.”

You turned only your eyes over to look at him, his visor studying the side of your face intently. “Fine.”

“Thank you,” he rushed out.

“Just this once,” you whispered as you held up a finger close to his visor, the side of your mouth tugging up in a betrayal of the threat.

He let out a soft huff in amusement. “Keep walking until I come get you.”

It takes you a moment to get out a quiet, “And if you don’t?” Your accusing finger once wagging in his face now fell slowly to your side, your hand hanging limply at your side, feeling as useless as the rest of you currently did.

His head tilted to the side just slightly. “Like you said, I’ve done worse. This will be easy.” The Crest was two ships away now. “I’ll be right back.”

Moving as subtly as possible, you reached across your body, pressing the buttons on your vambrace to lower the ramp, trying to stick to routine. Stopping it after a foot or so, Din moved completely behind you, hissing, “Now!”

Flicking your wrist down sent your vambrace whirring, one blank whistling bird flying for the belly of the ship. The panel fell with a loud clatter, Din disappearing in the cacophony that followed. Emergency lights shot on around all parts of the Crest, white vapor shooting out from the panel filling the area. Looking up toward the cockpit, you saw a tiny green face you’d know anywhere smooshed against the viewport, his hands on either side of his head as his breaths puffed against the transparisteel.

You could either seal the ship back up and do what Din asked, keep moving, or you could….

Following your gut with a gentle shake of your head, you lowered the ramp of the Crest just enough for you to jump up onto it, sealing it shut with a hiss behind you. You darted the rest of the way up to the cockpit, scooping the kid out of the window as he watched the commotion unfold below. Muffled grunts and flashes from blasters filled the ship from outside, so you dropped to the lower level.

“Hey, kid. We’re gonna play a game.” He squirmed in your arms, reaching toward the cockpit with one hand, his eyes darting between you and the hatch leading up.

Holding up his little round ball between your thumb and index finger like you had the ration packet earlier in the day, you smirked when he settled down, focusing on the way the low lights of the ship caught its reflective surface.

“I want you to do what Ahsoka asked you to do.” Setting him in his hammock, you took a few steps back, holding the ball up tantalizingly.

A loud thud sounded from outside, something slamming into the hull of the Crest near the ramp. It made you jump, the kid’s head turning to the sound in concern, but when you reached out to feel for Din, he was smug, making you roll your eyes. He’d done the throwing not the slamming.

Resting your dominant hand on your blaster, ready to draw, you floated the ball to Grogu with your other. He caught it with a soft squeal. “Now, give it here, kid.” You made a grabby hand toward him, making him giggle quietly.

The ball floated toward you slowly as the ramp began to lower with a low whirr. “Keep going, kid.” You kept your voice encouraging, your attention on him with your hand extended for the little orb. Your other hand slowly drew your blaster, arming it and pointing it at the rapidly descending ramp.

“Grogu,” you drew his attention back to you. “Keep your eyes on me, ad’ika.” (“Little one.”)

His eyes kept darting between the ramp and you, the ball still slowly turning in the air like a miniature planet, suspended halfway between you, stuck where he’d lost his concentration for a moment. “Sur'ar.” (“Focus.”)

Turning your body just slightly more toward the ramp, moving just a step to the left to block more of Grogu from whoever was coming up, you turned your gaze toward the sound of footsteps. Watching as the face of a man you didn’t recognize appeared, you straightened your spine, finger hovering over the trigger, ready…. Then the body crumpled to the ground, revealing Din standing easily behind the man, hand on his hip as he took in the scene.

You, the child, a ball floating between you that suddenly dropped to the floor and rolled to a stop at the toe of his boot. Looking down at it, Din stooped to pick it up, tucking it into his belt, ignoring the kid’s squawk of outrage. Turning back to you, his weight shifted to one leg. “Is there a reason a blaster is still pointed at me?”

Blinking a few times, you shook your head to clear it, holstering your weapon. “I was just being safe.”

“It would have been safer if you had done what I asked you to,” he grunted, dragging the body over to his carbonite chamber.

Watching for a long minute, it’s painfully obvious, so you don’t really know why you ask, “What’re you doing?”

Din’s sigh says he agrees with you, but he answers anyway, “This one’s had a bounty on him for a few years. Gonna collect. Not going to let that go to waste.”

You nodded. Suddenly feeling the urge to explain yourself, you took a deep breath before beginning. “I came up here because the kid was watching you from the cockpit-”

“He’s seen worse.” Such a simple answer. Somewhat crude, actually. It seemed out of character for…. No, it definitely was.

After staring at him for a moment, you scoffed. “So have I, Din. In fact, that was my argument not ten minutes ago.”

His shoulders went stiff, a heavy sigh leaving him. “It’s different.” He kept his back to you as he prepped the chamber, but you didn’t miss the small wayward glance he sent you over his shoulder before his spine straightened further and he turned back to the panel.

The air was charged between you, something brewing just under the surface. Your hands came to your hips like his had. “No, it’s not.”

As the carbonite hissed, filling the hull with vapor, Din crossed over to the bunk, closing the door as Grogu babbled. With a press of a button on his vambrace, the ramp began to close, and soon after it sealed, both of you were left in complete silence, staring at one another.

After a long moment, he spoke in a tone that was void of any particular emotion. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he was a droid. “I need you to do what I ask, mesh’la. It’s only to make sure you’re safe.”

“You don’t need to keep protecting me, Din!” Tossing your arms out and letting them come back down to your sides with a slap in exasperation, you kept your gaze firmly on him. “I can take care of myself. You taught me how.”

Something cracked, his posture breaking down just a bit, the rigidity dissolving under your words. “That’s not-” he groaned in frustration, turning and taking a few steps before turning back to face you again. His voice was lower, full of emotion, too many to name. “I can’t protect you from me.”

Fear. You realized all the emotions swirling in his words came together to paint one singular thing you never thought you’d ever associate with Din. It was unnerving to say the least, and it left you feeling broken, that he would ever be afraid of anything, much less when it came to you.

Staring at him for another long moment, you finally found the words that seemed to fit next. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He began pacing again, hands gesturing with small, precise gestures that made you think of things you’d see a commanding officer use to communicate in the field with fellow soldiers. “Everything I taught you was to keep you safe with me. We get into some questionable situations and I need to know you’ll be walking back onto the ship with me at the end of it all.” He sighed again, his shoulders slumping forward in defeat. Stopping his back and forth, Din faced you, his gestures now a bit broader, looser, but less emphatic. “But you’ve never seen me doing what I did before you came on the ship.”

You were smiling. This was ridiculous. “How is that different-”

“It just is!” His voice was raised, his breathing coming in heavy pants like this topic winded him. He didn’t turn away again, staying where he was, but he seemed broader, like he was staring down a threat. And in a way he was. If he couldn’t keep you safe, from himself or anything else, that was his biggest fear, and the thing he wanted to scare off the most.

The smile slipped off your face, furrowed brows replacing it. Closing the distance and reaching a hand toward him, he took a step back, almost flinching away from you, making you freeze.

“There’s a difference. It’s….” His body was turned to the side to face away from you, his visor looking at your feet. His voice sounded almost…. Defeated. “There’s a difference between keeping someone safe and taking care of a threat.”

“Not if they both accomplish the same goal.” Your voice was soft.

Din lifted his visor to hold your gaze, his head tilted to the side. His posture conveyed disbelief, hands on his hips again while he studied you. While his breathing had evened out, it was still shallow, and you had a feeling if you put your hand over his heart, it would be racing.

Reaching toward him again, you hesitated when he turned his head to look away, but you continued, placing it on his cheek and turning his visor slowly back toward you.

“It’s no different for me, Din. I don’t judge you for any of it.”

“Maybe you should.” His voice was low and flat.

You shook your head. “No. You’re protecting your aliit, what about that could ever be wrong?” (“Family/Clan.”)

He almost began to melt into your touch, his voice softening along with the hard lines of his posture. “I-”

“Uh-uh,” you shook your head again, grinning when he sighed in frustration, turning his gaze to anywhere but you. “You’re good at what you do, Din. Bounty hunting, piloting, taking care of Grogu, following leads to find the Jedi…. Taking care of me.” His visor landed back on you. “But you also need to take care of you. You have a lot of people who care about you, friends, family…. And we all just want you to be okay.” Your hand fell to rest on his chest plate, and you smiled when you did indeed feel his heart racing, along with deep, steady breaths. “So give yourself a break…. Eat….” You both chuckled softly. “Take a kriffing nap….” He hung his head, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter. “And then we can resume murder and mayhem after. It’ll wait. I promise.”

Glancing over at the carbonite chamber as the last of the vapor dissipated, your curiosity got the better of you. “Was he….”

“He’s alive,” Din grunted, turning his attention that way as well. “But whenever they take him off ice, he’ll wish he wasn’t.”

“What’s he wanted for, do you know?”

“What’s he not wanted for? That would be the easier answer. He’s done a little bit of everything. But he was really big on the smuggling scene.”

Tilting your head as you studied the criminal's face, stuck in a permanent scowl, your brows pinched together.

Turning back to face you, Din tilted his head to match yours. “Why?”

Your eyes flicked up to his visor as you blinked a few times, trying to find the right words. “Why did someone like him have my puck…. and why would he chance it?” You turned your body fully toward Din. “If he’s evaded everyone including you for years, why risk running into a face to face with you just to get to me?”

“He wasn’t the brightest, maybe he didn’t know I’d be here-”

“Did you remove his stuff before you froze him? His belt?”

Without asking further questions, Din led you over to a crate by the chamber, lifting up a belt with a blaster and a few pouches. You took it, looking through the pouches, emptying the contents, grimacing when you pulled out a few small containers of spice, some death sticks, a small flask that you sniffed out of curiosity - spotchka - then, finally, what you were looking for…. A fob.

Pushing the button, it beeped continuously, making you quickly click it off. “That’s annoying.”

Out of the same pocket, Din pulled out a holopuck, holding it in his palm as he pushed the button with his thumb. A holo of your face popped up, spinning lazily in a circle along with the details of the bounty like the price, your last known location, and the date you were last seen there: Coruscant - Today.

“The price has gone up,” Din mumbled quietly. “Those scumbags on Arvala-7 said it was-”

“Where did they get that picture? It’s awful.” You looked up at Din as his visor turned down toward you. “I don’t look like that, do I?”

He let out a soft huff of laughter, shaking his head as he turned back to the puck, reading over the details. “It doesn’t say who issued the bounty, or why. No mention of me, either, so that explains him.” Din gestured over his shoulder with a jerk of his head toward the frozen villain.

“You’re saying they’d leave me alone, or at least more of them would, if they knew I was with you?”

He nodded. “Probably. There’s a code within the guild, unspoken but still, and there’s fear among quarry’s.” He shrugged. “I have enough of a reputation in both that people don’t usually mess with me unless the price is good.” Sighing he pressed the puck to shut it down, closing his fingers around it and lifting it up in reference as he spoke. “Unfortunately, this is starting to get that high.” He tucked it into his belt to keep for later.

“What about what started all this? My apartment and the Mando’a on the painting?” Floating the tracking fob above your flattened palm, you disassembled it without touching it once, smiling when small sparks shot out as some wires were pulled out of the circuits. Letting the parts crash to the floor with hollow pings once it was in shambles, you turned your attention back to Din, grinning with a shrug when he just stared at you.

Din watched you for a long moment, before he finally shook his head once at you in disbelief. “I think that was unrelated,” he finally said. “That was because you know me. Now that we know Gideon has been alive this whole time, it wouldn’t surprise me if he sent people.”

“So I may have two different bounties on me?” You collected all the parts of the fob into one pile with some lazy waves of your fingers.

Din watched in amusement as you swept the floor in quite possibly the most absurd manner he’d ever seen. “No, but you may have two different groups searching for you.”

Directing them with your index finger, you set the parts on the crate by the illicit items you’d removed. “Great.”

You both looked at each other, a smirk climbing up your face as he slowly shook his head at you. “Let’s just hope neither one is particularly motivated.”

Xxx

A soft rhythmic knock tapped against the hull of the Crest a while later, making you and Din freeze as you straightened the ration stores after the kid’s deep dive that morning. Looking up and meeting the other’s gaze, Din finally jerked into motion, taking the few steps toward the ramp.

Hand on your blaster as he pulled the lever to lower it, you moved in front of the bunk space, waving your hand in front of the panel to conceal a sleeping Grogu.

Before Din could say a word, you heard your mother’s voice quickly advancing up the ramp, his posture relaxing the closer her voice got. His shoulders stiffened when you heard a second voice mumble something lowly, stopping just out of your line of sight.

“Oh, don’t start that now,” your mom mumbled, backtracking before she quickly reached out and yanked on someone, causing some stumbling steps to follow her before you saw the face behind her come into view.

“Dad?”

The scowl on your father's face melted when he saw you, the corners of his mouth quickly lifting up into a disbelieving grin. He whispered your name as you both closed the distance between you, wrapping the other in a hug, rocking side to side as it went on. “How I missed you. We’ve been so worried. Where have you been, nau ki'bas’ika?” (“Little light bug.”)

You froze immediately, pushing your father to arms length to meet his curious gaze. To your side you saw Din taking a few steps closer, his head tilted as he peered at your father.

“Was that…. Dad, you just spoke Mando’a.”

Realization crossed his features, his shoulders relaxing as he nodded. “Did I? I never knew that’s what that was. I just heard it once and I guess it stuck. It means firefly, right?”

You nodded. “‘Little light bug’, but close enough.”

“Where did you hear it?” Din finally spoke, his voice quiet but curious.

Your father pulled away from you, and walked over to stand by your mother. He gestured to you with his head as he began. “She was young, only maybe twelve at the time….”

Giggling, you ran from your father, darting through the crowded streets of your neighborhood.

You were determined to make it to the shop at the end of the street. The old lady who worked there would give you sweets if you stopped by alone. She knew your parents didn’t want you to spoil your dinner, so she always feigned innocence when they were nearby, slipping you smaller treats under the counter on those days.

“Get back here!” Your fathers voice faded behind you, his laughter beginning to paint his words as he knew right where you were going.

Glancing over your shoulder to see how close he’d gotten, you suddenly ran straight into a wall of metal, almost falling back on your seat, but two hands caught you just in time.

Looking up, you saw your own reflection staring back at you in the dark T of a menacing looking visor, surrounded by dark green paint. “Careful, little one,” a kind voice warned through some sort of processor.

Your father called your name a few times, quickly closing in, his eyes wide when he saw the man’s hands around your arms. “I’m so sorry, sir.” Taking you into his own arms quickly, kneeling in front of you, he cradled you into his shoulder. “Are you okay, firefly?”

The younger man laughed, and you thought it was such a happy sound. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Right in the path of this little one on her mission to somewhere obviously very important,” he chuckled. Reaching out, he patted your head, ruffling your hair. “Be careful next time, nau ki'bas’ika, little firefly. It’s best to go around people, not through them. A much nicer time for everyone involved.” With a gentle shake of his head, he turned and walked away.

“He looked a lot like you, actually. Well, your armor,” your father concluded, pointing to Din.

You took a few steps over to the weapons locker and pulled out the green helmet you’d worn on Corvus. Looking into the T of the visor, you saw the reflection of your twelve year old self staring back at you, wide eyed and curious.

“That! It looked like that!” Pointing at the beskar in your hands, your father trailed off, his voice lowering to a whisper as his features screwed up in confusion. “Exactly like that. Wait. How did you….”

“Long story,” you sighed, setting the helmet back on the shelf.

Accepting your answer, your father moved on to the next topic. “How did you know that was Mando’a? You’ve never really been one for languages.”

Din had the audacity to let out a snort of laughter from where he leaned against the wall, arms crossed easily over his chest.

Rolling your head to level a narrow glare on your Mandalorian, you signed to him in Tusken in an attempt to keep the conversation a little more private in the tiny hull of the Crest, “What?”

He shrugged. “Jee tinka soong…. nuh'la,” he responded in Huttese, your newest attempted language to tackle, slipping into Mando’a on the last word when he couldn’t think of the proper one in the first language. (“I think it’s…. funny.”)

“Dobrah koona tah seenga Wooky tah uba,” you threatened in Huttese. (“I am going to sing Wookie to you.”)

“Shyriiwook? Ni ne ru’ba’juri gar ibac su,” he replied in Mando’a, completely forgoing trying to maintain the Huttese. (“Shyriiwook? I have not taught you that yet.”)

“Uba tinka Jee joka?” (“You think I joke?”)

A clearing of a throat attempted to pull your attention away, your mother’s small voice making you sigh as you continued to stare at Din. “Did I miss something?”

“No, mama,” with a roll of your eyes at Din, you turned to face your parents. “Just an inside joke.” You shot a glare back towards your armored companion. “Nothing important.” Bringing your eyes back to your father’s, you couldn’t help the smile you felt working up your face. “To answer your question, I guess I just never had a reason before.”

He arched a brow. “A reason?”

“Mando’a is the language of his people, well…. Of his Creed. It’s important to him, so it’s important to me.” You looked back over at Din, eyes narrowed. “Plus, he played dirty and started speaking to me only in Mando’a, so I kind of didn’t have a choice.”

“I did not-”

“After that,” you turned back to your parents, ignoring Din’s aggravated huff. “I wanted to learn because we’ve encountered so many different species and cultures…. I wanted to be able to communicate with them, even just a little bit.”

“Ah, so, ‘Help, I’ve lost my Mandalorian’ in what, seven different languages?” Your mom teased, smiling mischievously.

You laughed. “Something like that.”

Your mother closed the small space between you, resting her hands on your arms gently. “I’m so happy for you. You’re thriving.” The soft smile coloring her features quickly faded, concern clouding her eyes as they fell, mindlessly darting over your vambraces as she pulled back to hold your hands between you.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Your apartment…. It…. It was burned. We…. We thought the worst, then someone from the bar brought in the note you left a few months ago saying you would be gone an unknown length of time. Between that and something about you throwing a lit bottle of alcohol across an alley causing an explosion,” Din groaned softly, cradling his forehead with his hand while your mother took a deep breath before continuing. “The authorities thought maybe you’d set the fire yourself and are looking for you.”

All you could do was blink, looking at your mother, but not really seeing a thing in front of your face.

Everything in your apartment. Gone.

All the things Din had brought back for you, the memories….

Clearing your throat, you turned your gaze over onto Din, the weight of his patient stare behind his visor drawing lines up and down your face as he studied your reaction.

That place hadn’t really been home for a while now. Had stopped being home the minute you’d left that morning before stepping on board the Crest. And the ship, as much as it was a home for you now, was really just a place to come back to, four walls and roof. Wherever the little green goblin and his big shiny protector were, that was where you were meant to be.

You’re just happy he and the kid weren’t there. Things can be replaced.

“When nothing happened after several weeks,” your dad picked up the story after giving you a moment of silence to process, “we hired a private investigator.”

At some point during the conversation, Din had floated silently over to stand right beside you, his hand resting on the small of your back in comfort. “That’s where the bounty on you came from.” His voice is low, barely enough to fill the space between the two of you, just enough to buzz from his modulator and tickle your ear. “They don’t care if you’re dead or alive, their job is just to find you.”

Before you could add anything to the conversation, your father came over to join the three of you. He stood toe to toe with Din, peering up at him seriously, and it was every bit as amusing as you thought it would be. “She’s safe with you?”

“Dad, it’s probably the safest place I can be.”

It’s as if they didn’t hear you, neither Din nor your father reacting to your words. They simply continued to stare one another down, your father having to crane his neck back just slightly to maintain eye contact with the Mandalorian. To his credit, only the corner of one eye was twitching, showing his fear under the weighty stare of beskar.

“Your daughter is very capable herself, sir. She’s saved my life many times.”

Sir? Did Din just call someone sir? You needed to sit down.

As the Crest began to spin around you, the world obviously turning on its head since Din was calling people sir without a blaster to his head, it righted itself just a little bit when you realized the compliment he just paid you in the same breath.

You’re capable. Capable. In Mandalorian speak that’s the same as calling you one of their own, or it’s pretty damn close. If anyone asked, that’s what you were going to tell them.

And voluntarily saying you’d saved his life? Granted, to your father, that probably wasn’t the best sell, life in peril and all, but! You were definitely telling people about this.

Your father arched a skeptical brow. “Is that so?”

Yes. Yes, it is. If anyone asks, just call me-

Din nodded. “And that of my son.”

….We were so close.

As if waiting for his cue, the bunk door hissed open, revealing the empty chamber, before Grogu peeked out over the edge of the hammock, drawing all eyes to him. Your mother melted instantly, prattling nonsense as she rushed over to him and picked him up.

“He’s like me, mom.” She narrowed her brows in confusion, so you reached into the pocket on Din’s belt and pulled out the ball. “Grogu? Help me out here?”

The child’s eyes went wide when he saw his toy, and he immediately reached out for it, causing it to fly through the air to his waiting palm. Both of your parents' eyes went wide at him, before they looked at each other, then at Din. “It’s okay. He knows, too. We’re trying to get the kid to a Jedi so he can be trained.”

“There are still some left?” Your mother asked genuinely but looked at Grogu the whole time, her finger fiddling with the front of his robe.

How to answer?

‘Yes, we just met one and helped her take over a corrupted city to give back to the people’?

‘Yes, we just met one, and she taught me how to jump on top of really tall stuff’?

‘Yes, we just met one and she said she can’t help the kid because of his attachment to Din, not to mention me, and my vision dream memory things have something to do with the kyber crystal in my saber and a bond forged in the Force long before the three of us were born’?

“Some.”

“Is that where you got that?” Your dad asked quietly, pointing to the saber on your belt.

‘The voices brought me that while we hid in a supply closet and I saw a ten year old Din, a who knows how old Grogu, and a two year old me with both of you, not to mention something from the future involving the Mandalorians, and it all gave me a headache.’

‘The kyber led me to it, and after some vision thingies, I exploded some lights with a surge of Force power, and had to resist The Dark Side when Din almost drowned.’

“No, that found me at a black market port on Trask.”

“Found you?”

Don’t ask.

“Yeah. Like whoever torched my apartment.” You turned to Din beside you, his hand still firmly on your lower back. “I still need to go by there. Get my stash of credits from under the floor.”

“They found them,” your mom said. “That was another thing they thought was suspicious.”

“Of course they did,” you rolled your eyes. “Where are they now?”

“They are holding them as evidence.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Din said softly.

“What are you going to do, break in and take it?” Your dad scoffed, Grogu squealing in your mom’s arms at his tone toward his own father.

“No,” Din said pointedly as he tilted his head to the side, looking at your father skeptically. “I have a few contacts here who can take care of it for me.”

Your parents just gave you a look.

“He’s a bounty hunter, what do you expect?” You shook your head gently, not quite knowing what to say past that.

Oh now you’re quiet. Thanks, brain.

Your dad shifted his weight for a moment before he took a deep breath. “You’re running from a bounty…. With a bounty hunter…. Forgive me, but….”

An anger began to roil in your stomach, your hands clenched in fists at your sides. The room started to fill with a low rumble, and you realized it was the sound of blood rushing in your ears. It was so loud, you could barely hear your voice when you began to speak in a low, even tone. “This all started before there was even a bounty to speak of, dad. This all started because I-”

You're stopped by a tug on your pant leg, pulling your focus down. Grogu’s tiny green face peered up at you, a wave of calm washing over you from the ground up, the low hum coming to an abrupt stop, and your hands releasing at your sides. You bent over to scoop him into your arms, holding him close to your chest.

“The weapons locker started to shake. And a few crates in the corner.” Din’s soft voice in your ear explained.

“Thank you, ad’ika,” you mumbled into the top of the child’s head, taking a moment before lifting your gaze back to your parents. “I’m here because I want to be, not just because of a bounty. When I told him I was coming with him - he didn’t ask - we didn’t even know someone might be looking for me until we got back to my apartment for me to grab a few things. That’s when we found it trashed and knew that I had to go with him, to be safe.”

Din turned to you, his voice still calm and low. “They torched it to burn the evidence.”

Your mother’s head snapped between the two of you a few times before her words came out in a rapid fire. “What evidence? Of what? What’s going on?”

With a heavy sigh, you turned your body slowly to face her, and lowered yourself to sit on a nearby crate, leaning forward to brace your elbows on your knees. Grogu perched on your lap, looking between all four of you as the conversation went on. “There are some people who aren’t very happy that Mando and I….” Your eyes fell to the floor of the Crest, searching for the proper words to complete the sentence. “….Get along. He used to come into the bar every few months, and would bring me something-”

“Oh he’s the one!” She cut you off with a broad smile, eyes darting over to your beskar clad companion. “The one that traveled the galaxy for you.”

You smiled shyly, looking up and over at Din where he’d sat close by, and quickly tucked your chin to your chest to try and hide the growing grin on your face. “Yeah. That was him.” You turned back to your mom. “Still is. The gifts are just…. A little different now. More practical.”

“Oh.” She smiled knowingly, if not somewhat sadly. “So he lost interest?”

Din choked, starting to cough as your eyes went wide, laughter bubbling up and out of your chest.

“No! No, no. Mom. We just…. Like we said, the apartment was burned to cover their tracks because they came after me to come after him. And they’re still coming. So now his gifts help keep me safe.” You traced the line of your left vambrace with your right index finger. “They have helped me find purpose on dark days and strength on hard ones.” Grogu’s hand came up to rest on your vambrace, intersecting your fingers' path, making you smile. “It’s very different, yes, but not anything less, just…. They’ve adjusted to fit the current needs.”

“Running for your life?”

You understood their skepticism. You really did. People only want what’s best for their children, and you can see why this isn’t it for them. On the run, in an old ship, with someone they consider dangerous and a stranger, your life on the line for a few credits….

But you’ve never been more sure of what you're doing in your life.

“Protecting my family.”

Xxx

Your parents had insisted both of you stay the night with them. Something about them feeling guilty about the bounty and since you’d already been found near the Crest once…. You and Din weren’t going to turn down a real bed, there was no love lost between you and the thin bunk pad.

They left to get the room ready while you and Din collected a few necessities for the night.

“I’m going to go get a few things,” you said as nonchalantly as possible.

“Mesh’la, no. What do you need? I’ll go get them, you stay here and lock up the ship until I get back-”

“No!” You said a little too forcefully, correcting it with a softer, “No,” quickly after. “I’ll be fine, Din. I just…. Need some air, that’s all.”

He sighed. “Fine. But I’m meeting my contact here with your credits in an hour. Be back by then so you can count them and make sure it’s all there.” You nodded, turning to go down the ramp when he caught your arm gently, making your turn back to look at his visor again, one brow raised. “Please.”

Offering a tight lipped smile, you nodded again, pulling your cloak over your shoulders as you descended the ramp.

It was a quick little jog to the bar, just a few streets over, and you stood in the shadows near the entrance, waiting for Nem to show up.

Looking all around, you saw the bright neon signs displaying their never ending messages in Aurebesh, flashing images of products or faces of spokespersons for milliseconds before moving on to the next. This used to be comforting to you, familiar, but now, after seeing green, and life, space as far as you could see…. You couldn’t wait to get out of here.

The sign for the bar flickered above you, pulling your eyes up to it in amusement. They still hadn’t fixed it. Pulling your eyes up further still, you saw the lines of speeders zooming past above, flickers of finely dressed men and women going about their days without a second glance down to the grunge below. Growing up on the lower levels, you learned that sometimes the best things are hidden, tucked away where you’ll never find them unless you really look. Anytime you entered a new atmosphere on the Crest, you found your eyes instantly pulled downward, scanning the surface for all its secrets. And so far…. You hadn’t been disappointed.

Laughter broke your revere, your focus coming back down in front of you as you saw Nem walking up to the bar with a group of other regulars.

Jostling a nearby pile of trash with a little nudge from your mind, you saw Nem’s eyes dart your way, widening in recognition when he saw you. He opened his arms wide like he was about to make some announcement, but stopped when you shook your head ever so slightly at him.

“Ah…. Hmmm…. You know what, guys? You go ahead. Order a spotchka for me.” He slapped his friends on the back as he started to pull away from the group.

“Where are you going?” Some deep, gravelly voice asked.

“Gotta take a piss,” he pulled a face, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb, then smiling when they all guffawed before waving him off and disappearing inside.

Once he was within reach, you pulled him into the alley by his collar, pinning him against the wall by your vambrace at his neck.

He grunted at the impact, but smiled down at you. “Hey, you. Nice to know you’re alive. No ‘hi’? ‘Hello’? ‘How’re you doing, Nem?’ Oh I’m just fine, thanks for asking….” His voice trailed off tightly at the end as you applied a little more pressure with your armored forearm. He reached up, tapping it with one hand as he ground out, “Okay. I get it. I yield, or whatever. Just…. Stop.”

You eased back a bit, rolling your eyes when he took dramatic breaths. Shoving his shoulders against the wall, you took a small step back.

“Are those beskar?” He eyed your vambraces, rubbing his neck with a grimace. A mischievous smile wound up his face, his eyes sparkling in the dimly lit alley. “I take it you found your Mandalorian.”

“He wasn’t lost,” you grumbled. “Cut the shit, Nem.” He chuckled. “Just tell me where I can find other Mandalorians.”

“Why, you got a thing for them or something?” Wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, it melted into a grimace and a groan when you pushed him back up against the wall, vambrace against his throat again. “Okay, okay! Kriff, you need a drink. Hell, I need a drink. Um, I don’t know?”

Pulling him forward by his shirt before you slammed him back into the wall again, he began to protest quickly.

“I don’t know!” He almost yelled, lowering his voice after you gave him a warning look. “I don’t know. Really, I don’t. I heard about the shiny one on Sorgan purely by chance, right place right time, and I haven’t heard a thing since. They are a really reclusive bunch, Mando’s. And I don’t blame them.”

“So you know nothing?” You reiterated after a moment, all your hopes dropping to the ground around you.

“Not a thing,” he verified, his expression sincere.

“I find that hard to believe,” you hissed. “Your nose is always where it doesn’t belong, in everybody’s business.” Leaning into him again, your voice dropped a bit deeper. “Tell me.”

The smirk twisted back up his face. “You’re so funny. Come on, let’s get a drink.” He went to push off the wall when a shadow moved over both of you from behind you and his eyes went wide as he froze, staring over your shoulder.

“I suggest you do what she says, before I start asking.” You smirked at the familiar modulated voice.

You tilted your head at Nem. “You won’t like it when he asks. Much less pleasant.” You dug the vambrace in slightly on the last word to prove your point.

“Fine, fine,” Nem hissed after a long minute, reaching up to try and pull your beskar away, grunting when it didn’t work. “I wasn’t listening. Ask me again.”

Din grunted, his modulator coming right by your ear, but his tone far from something to keep Nem from overhearing. “Before you let him go, I just need one minute alone with him, mesh’la.”

Glancing at his helmet as it almost rested on your shoulder, you teasingly warned, “Mando….”

“He won’t die, don’t worry.”

Nem swallowed roughly. “Can I worry?” He asked, raising his hand as if you needed to know who was speaking.

You slammed him into the wall again. “Talk.”

Xxx

Credits tucked safely onboard the Crest, you turned to Din as the ramp sealed shut behind you, beginning the trek to your parents apartment.

They had stopped Din before he could lower the ramp, your mother’s hand over his on the lever. She didn’t even flinch when he turned his visor down to look at her in question.

“What do we call you?”

“Just call him Mando,” you jumped in. “Names are something special in Mandalorian culture, like their face. You don’t go around just sharing it with the galaxy.”

Your mother smiled, turning back to Din as she gave his hand a gentle pat. “Well, we would be honored if you called us by our names. I’m Leera, and this is my husband, Dero.”

After a moment, Din nodded, his glove creaking as his grip over the lever tightened. “Din.” Your mother tilted her head at him curiously. “My name is Din. Din Djarin.”

Your father extended his hand, gripping the inside of Din’s forearm as the Mandalorian gripped his. “Nice to meet you, Din.”

“Nice to meet you, Dero.” He nodded to your mom. “Leera.”

Your mother smiled back at him so wide, you thought her face might crack.

“Please tell me Nem walked away, at least.”

Din tossed his head side to side for a moment. “I can tell you he limped away….”

Rolling your eyes with a groan, you continued on in comfortable silence for a long moment.

“How’d you know I’d be at the bar?”

“I followed you from the ship, for one.”

“Really? I was careful! I made sure and kept checking…. I didn’t see you.”

He let out a quiet huff of laughter. “Like I said earlier, no one who knows their target knows they’re there gets that close. That’s just stupid.”

You shook your head as a soft snort of laughter escaped through your nose. “Not everyone is you, Din.”

“No, they are not,” he said proudly, turning to look at you with an affectionate tilt of his head when you threw your head back laughing loudly.

Linking your arm through his as you leaned into his side, you grinned. “So humble.”

“That’s why my armor is so shiny. Humility.”

You groaned at the joke, but looked up at him in amusement nonetheless. “That has to be it.”

Xxx

Din walked into the bedroom at your parents, Grogu propped in one arm, stopping just inside the threshold as the door slid shut behind him.

You stood up straight from where you were digging in your satchel, bent over the bed. “What?”

It took Din a few seconds to answer, his visor giving you a once over from head to toe slowly, making a smile tug at the corners of your lips. Opting to go barefoot while in your childhood home, you had to admit it probably looked a little odd to go from bare feet up to beskar on your forearms. You wanted to be safe, but you could protect the ones you loved while feeling the plush of carpet between your toes, couldn’t you?

Din shook his head then continued. “I just had a very…. Interesting conversation with your dad.”

“Oh no.” You turned to fully face him, hands going to your hips. “What’d he say?”

Din sighed, walking further into the room to set the kid down. “Well….”

“Let’s get you something to eat,” Din muttered to Grogu, walking quickly toward the kitchen. “Of course you’ve already eaten all the ration packets I packed. How did you even get into that bag anyway?”

Looking down at the tiny face in his arms, laughing softly at the babbled coos he got in response, Din nodded. “Okay. Perfectly acceptable answer. Just next time, save some for us, okay kid?” He swore the child rolled his eyes at him.

Stepping into the kitchen, he didn’t bother to turn on the lights, able to see just fine with his display in his helmet, and the kids' eyes were big enough to see in the dark. Grabbing a piece of fruit off the table, Din recognized it as the same kind you’d gotten on Nevarro, and he smiled.

Grogu let out an unamused huff, making him chuckle softly. “Hey. I promise, kid. You’re gonna love it.” When Grogu still watched the fruit with a skeptical eye, Din tried a different tactic. “Your buir loves them. She’s the one that found them,” he lilted temptingly. (“Mother.”)

He saw the kids eyes widen comically before he reached eagerly for the brightly colored fruit. Quickly grabbing the corner of his cape to dab at the juice streaming down Grogu’s face, he floundered for a minute, letting out a sigh as he reached for a nearby towel. “Come on, kid. Some of it is supposed to be in your mouth.”

The lights suddenly flicked on, making Din spin around on high alert, finding your dad standing in the doorway.

The only sound for a solid minute was Grogu’s happy squeal followed by gentle babbles as he reached for another piece of fruit. Your father stared at Din who stared right back, not even a twitch of an eyebrow was given, until your father finally gave a sigh that sounded very much like yours.

“Why are you skulking in the shadows, son?”

Din shifted his weight from side to side, pondering his response before stumbling out, “I... I'm not? I'm feeding the baby?” To be honest, his brain had short circuited at being called ‘son’. He’d been called a lot of things over the years, but that had never been one of them. Not since…. Not since before the Creed.

Your mother shuffled in, squinting at the bright lights as she looked around, taking in the scene. After a few steps, she took the fruit from Grogu, raising a brow at his squawk in protest, the arch reminding Din every bit of yours, and amazingly Grogu settled right down under its weight. Shuffling over to the counter, she began to slice the fruit up properly. "How old is the little guy?" She looked over her shoulder when Din didn’t answer at first, gesturing to the table with a tilt of her head before resuming her task.

Din was quick to obey, pulling out a seat to sit for himself, and placing Grogu in his lap, responding as a plate covered in easier to manage slices was slid in front of the little troublemaker. "Fifty."

If Din could capture the look on your parents’ faces to show you, he would. It was priceless. All they did was blink way too much and stare at the child as he munched happily on the sweet snack. Your mother had hesitated before falling back into a chair across from him, while your father shifted his weight to one side, his head shaking slightly in disbelief as he looked at the child with furrowed brows.

“Portions,” your mother mumbled, pointing at Grogu as she cleared her throat and gave her head a little shake. “Smaller portions, easier to chew bites. It’ll make him eat slower, which might help him eat less.” Din tilted his head to the side as he held her gaze, before looking down at the child who smiled up at him broadly. “I heard you grumbling to him in the hall about the ration packs,” she explained.

Nodding, Din lifted his visor back up to hold her gaze. “Thank you,” he kept his voice soft. “Mesh’l- uh, your daughter tries to do that as much as possible with the packets. Insists on hand feeding him if she can, to slow him down. I, ah,” he scratched the back of his neck. “I tend to forget, and just hand him the whole thing.”

Your mother smiled, pushing against the table to get back to her feet. “You’ll figure it out eventually.” She gave her husband’s chest a loving pat on her way out the door before leaving the two men once again in silence.

Din watched curiously as your father made his way over to the table, taking the seat your mother had been in. Leaning back, he looked at the Mandalorian down his nose, his eyes narrowed skeptically.

After several long minutes, Din finally sighed. “What are you doing?”

“...trying to be intimidating. Is it working?” There was no hesitation in his answer, coming immediately after Din’s question like it had been expected.

Din tossed his head from side to side as he weighed his answer. “Kind of.”

Your father bobbed his head in an approving nod. “Good.”

Another few minutes of silence settled between them, but this time it sat more comfortably.

Finally, your father shifted in his seat, relaxing his shoulders as he let out a long breath. “I’m not going to ask you any questions. Frankly, there’s a lot I want to know, don’t get me wrong, but…. Quite honestly, you scare me too much for any of that.”

Smiling under the helmet, Din looked down at Grogu to give the man a break from the intimidating visor.

When your father spoke again, his voice had softened considerably. “She’s my little girl.”

Din lifted his head just slightly to find the man looking at him with a remarkably sincere expression. “Just…. Just promise me she’s safe, that she will continue to be…. And we’ll leave it at that.”

Raising his head the rest of the way so he could look at your father straight on, Din answered with as steady a voice as he could muster. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure she stays safe and sound. You have my word.”

The two men shared a nod of understanding before Din added one last thought.

“Aliit ori'shya tal'din.” (“Family is more than blood.”)

Your father asked what that meant, eyes widening only slightly when Din explained. Nodding once again, his eyes fell to the table top as he muttered a quiet, “I see.” After a long moment, he began quietly, keeping his eyes down, “I noticed that same symbol from your armor on her weapons. Is that….?”

“My signet. The sign of my clan.”

He bobbed his head again slowly, the only reaction that seemed applicable in this situation, so he kept applying it. “Is it a large clan?”

“It’s a clan of three.”

“Just three?” Your father tilted his head to the side as he studied the Mandalorian.

“All we’ve needed.”

He continued to nod in acceptance, moving the conversation along. “What are your plans after you’ve gotten this one to the Jedi?” He pointed at Grogu, smiling as he watched the little green ward lick the fruit juice off the now empty plate.

Din hesitated, taking the plate from the kid and wiping his face off with the towel still in his hands, ignoring his whines of protest. “We haven’t thought that far ahead yet.��

Your father’s voice had dropped even softer in understanding. “But they involve her.”

Din chose his words carefully, not wanting to do anything to harm the delicate balance he found himself in with your father. He’d thought about this a lot. Since before you even came on the Crest. “All of my plans from this point forward involve her. In some form or another…. They have for a long time.”

The other man grimaced but quickly tried to hide it. “Bounty hunting?”

Din thought for a moment before answering honestly. “Hopefully living.”

“I’ve done a lot of terrifying things, like fighting the mudhorn I thought was going to kill me…. And that conversation was worse.”

You were sitting on the foot of the bed, a hand over your mouth as you tried very hard not to laugh.

“It’s not funny,” he deadpanned, looking down at you with the flattest expression you’d ever seen from the expressionless visor.

“I didn’t say anything!” You held your hands up by your head in surrender, melting into small giggles after a moment under the weight of his stare. “It’s a little bit funny,” you countered.

Din walked around the bed without a word, setting Grogu down near the pillows.

“You know, I get it from him.”

“Get what?” Din asked after another long moment, his voice dripping with a ‘why did I ask’ tone.

“The Force. He's more matters of the mind than physical manifestations, though. He’s what you call Force sensitive, he can feel it more than others, and can manipulate it to a degree, but, not like….” You turned at the sound of giggling, finding Grogu floating through the air, slowly turning end over end. “Not like that.”

Din turned away from his levitating son as if it were just another day in the life - which, to be fair, it was - and focused on the matter at hand. “Are you telling me he could read my mind, mesh’la?” He hissed the last few words at you, hands on his hips.

“I’m saying he could? If he wanted to? Why, were you thinking about something you shouldn’t be?”

Din’s weight shifted under your question. He hadn’t told you the whole conversation.

“Hopefully living.”

Suddenly he’s transported back to a dream he once had of a quiet life on a secluded planet, somewhere deep in the woods with you and the kid. The kids.

The smell of something warm simmering on the stove, the peals of laughter around the corner, a soft breeze promising a shift in the weather soon the biggest of his worries.

No bounties, no Creed in the way, just life.

And instantly that dream world is tinted with shame.

He’ll never be able to provide that for you or the kid. And even if he could, he wouldn’t be able to enjoy it with you. That’s not how his life worked. He didn’t get to settle down, away from problems. They always came to him. And he wouldn’t do that to you or the kid.

“It’s a hard life, bounty hunting,” your father pulled his focus back. “But if you haven’t noticed by now, she’s a tough soul. I’d dare say her heart is made of beskar.” What was he getting at? “Wherever you go, that’s where she will be. That’s how she works, what makes her happiest. Best not to fight it.”

“No,” Din finally answered. “No, I was thinking about you, is all.”

“Only good things, I hope,” you grinned at him, your eyes narrowing mischievously. “Appropriate things.”

“Oh, of course,” he teased. “The way you looked in that armor on Corvus, that’s appropriate, right?”

“Stop,” you chuckled, moving to start turning down the bed.

“And the way you tackled that guard from the roof? Or how about the way you just decided to confiscate the asshole’s gun to piss me off?” He tilted his head when you looked at him over your shoulder. “Any of those okay?”

“You didn’t.” Turning to him with a huff, you closed your eyes with a groan.

He waited until you peeked one eye open at him before he answered playfully. “No. I didn’t.”

“You little….” You reached out, giving his shoulder a shove.

“Little?” He chuckled, trying to grab your wrists to stop your onslaught.

“Sometimes you’re such a pain in my ass, Din.” Grabbing his cowl, you tugged him closer, fighting the grin trying desperately to climb up your face. “Kriff.” Tugging down on the material, his forehead came to rest on yours with a soft thunk. “So annoying.”

“Shi par gar,” Din mumbled quietly, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you in closer to him. (“Only for you.”)

The quiet moment was interrupted when the kid stopped his tumble through the air by landing firmly on Din’s helmet, patting the top of your head with his hand affectionately.

Hinging your head back until it rested against the top of your shoulders, you peered up at the little green minion. “You, too, tiny. You and your dad have meetings or something to plot your next tactics?” You smiled at Din’s hummed, “Mmm-hmm.” Untangling yourself from your Mandalorian, you reached up to pull Grogu down. “Time for bed, ad’ika.” You set him on the bed before you walked back up to the pile of pillows at the top. “Help me get these off? We can use some of them to make a bed for the kid.”

Nodding, Din went around to the other side of the bed, starting to sort through the mass of pillows. “Now I know where you get your love of pillows from.”

“Don’t you even dare,” you turn a half hearted glare up at him. “I love a pillow, not a mountain of them.”

He held his hands up in surrender, a pillow hanging limply in one hand. “It came from somewhere.”

“You’re going to be going somewhere if you don’t stop,” you grumbled, throwing a pillow at his chest with more force than necessary.

Din handed you the simpler pillows as you swapped them out for the decorative ones, smiling gently at him while you exchanged the soft materials.

Turning to the bedside table you’d cleared, the lamp now on the floor, casting its light onto the ceiling at an odd angle, you arranged the pillows into a makeshift bed for the kid. “There, ad’ika. How’s that?”

Grogu looked at it from his perch on the bed, then at you, squealing when Din came around with a chuckle and picked him up silently. With a few quick steps, the child was seated on his throne of plush, patting it inquisitively with his hands, tilting his head as he peered down at it.

“Get comfy, kid. You gotta stay the whole night there. No wandering around here. We don’t know who might be watching.”

Turning narrowed eyes up toward Din, you crossed your arms over your chest. “This is my childhood home. We’re plenty safe.”

“Not if anyone else has a fob.”

You scoffed, arms falling to your sides. “Oh, come on. They wouldn’t really try to come in-”

“They would.”

“How do you-”

“I would.”

You simply stared at his visor for a long moment, a sudden scraping sound pulling your focus back toward the child.

He’d pried the drawer on the front open, stuffing one of the pillows inside so it was haphazardly sticking out the side, and curled up in its center with a contented smile.

“Well. Okay. I guess that works,” you mumbled.

Din walked over to the other side table, taking out the holopuck from the compartment on his belt and set it on the flat surface. With a quick press, all your information spun in black and white above the little device.

You crawled across the bed to get a closer look. “Anything changed?”

“Now it mentions me,” he sighed. “I don’t know how they are getting their info so fast, but it’s impressive. Must be tied into the mainframe here, or something, direct access to security footage with recognition software….” He paused at your confused expression. “They have eyes and ears everywhere.” He turned back to the display. “The price has gone up, too.”

“That’s not my parents. They don’t have that kind of money.”

“No, I know. It’s who they hired. But I’m just confused why they want you so badly. As far as the local authorities are concerned, this is just a local smash and dash.” You chuckled at his choice of words, shrugging when he looked at you in question. “Unless….”

“Unless….” You encouraged him after a moment.

“No….” He took a deep breath. “Unless Gideon is in on it.”

“That would make more sense.” You reached out, shutting the puck down before getting under the covers. “And I take it that means you’re sleeping in your armor?”

He hesitated.

“You just said it-”

“I know what I said,” he snapped, huffing out a breath as his weight shifted to one side, his voice softening. “We’re several floors up, the building has security….”

“….and I’ll protect you if anybody is stupid enough to try something,” you finished for him. “I wear beskar, too.” You waved your arms a bit as if he needed to know what you meant. “And I’m pretty handy with a blaster.” Din grunted, making you scoff. “Just take off the weapons and your gloves, at least. Your jet pack. Cape. And you don’t need your boots to shoot someone. You have a real bed for one night, and I’d feel horrible if I knew you didn’t get to rest your back because of me.”

Din made his way around the bed, hovering on his side between you and the child. He stared at you for a long moment before finally muttering, “ My back…. It’s not-”

“You groan every time you sit down on the Crest.”

Suppressing it as best he could, Din groaned softly as he sat on the edge of the bed, making you snicker. “I do not-”

Doing your best imitation of his deepest complaint, you groaned heavily, repeating the noise every time he tried to continue talking. Finally a glove free hand came over your mouth, cutting your latest attempt short, and your eyes shot open to find his visor inches from your face.

“Would you stop? Your parents are going to think I’m murdering you, or something.”

Your lips quirked under his hand. “Or something,” you mumbled against his palm, wiggling your eyebrows suggestively.

It took a moment, but Din let out a low groan as his hand twitched, his weight shifting beside you on the bed, making you laugh softly.

“What’s the matter, Mando? Firefly got your tongue?” Your voice was muffled under his hand.

Shaking his head at you, he moved to sit on the edge of the bed, taking his boots off.

Scooting up behind him, you eased your hands over his shoulders. “Can I help?”

Din took a shallow breath before he nodded once, sitting up straighter and reaching for the front of his cowl. He unfastened it, letting it pool behind him into your waiting hands, where you folded it and set it next to the holopuck. Next you gently disengaged the jet pack, lifting it with a grunt as the weight settled into your hands then down to the floor by his boots with a soft thud.

Din chuckled softly at your small noise of effort, turning his head to look at you.

“Shut up,” you mumbled, coming back up behind him and wrapping your arms around his waist, resting your chin on his shoulder. He still had one glove on, interrupted by your shenanigans, so you helped him ease that off.

His body relaxed in your grip as he let out a long breath, tossing the glove onto his boots.

“Why’d you give them your name?” You asked softly.

“Wanted to,” he said on a breath, his voice relaxed, words almost slurred as the day began to set in.

“But why? You only just met them. It took you years before you trusted me enough-”

“They’re important to you, which makes them important to me, too.” He turned his visor to look at you, his voice clear and soft. “And I trusted you from the moment I met you.”

“Then why-”

“Because that scared me.”

You tucked the bottom half of your face into the top of his shoulder, letting the words fully process. Never did you think about Din being afraid, much less at something so simple. But the more you thought about it, the less simple it became.

He was someone who stayed cut off from the rest of the galaxy, physically and emotionally. By choice and Creed. But then suddenly, he found himself stuck in the middle of a feeling he was unfamiliar with, something new, and challenging.

For someone who had an admittedly usually violent solution for everything, you could see how this would be unsettling.

Unable to help the small tug of your lips upward at the thought, you decided to change the subject. “What do we do from here?”

“We go to Tython.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Even with the bounty?”

“You’ve had a bounty on you this entire time.”

“Thanks for reminding me. I’d totally forgotten,” you grumbled. “But you know what I mean! Now that it’s higher, and they obviously know what I’m doing, watching me- us. I’m not willing to put the kid, or you, for that matter, at risk-”

“It’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“Now they know I’m here. Even the dullest crook will think twice before taking a shot.”

Turning your face into his neck, you mumbled against his flight suit, “You’re just saying that so you can get out of another piece of armor to let your back relax more.”

“Maybe.” He drug out the word in a ridiculous way.

Rolling your eyes, you looked around the room to make sure everything was settled, your eyes landing on the windows across the way. “You know, this is Coruscant.”

“It is?” He sounded genuinely shocked.

You cut your eyes over to him in a short lived glare. “Every room has blackout curtains to block out the city lights. I know you want to stay ready, but…. If ever there was a place you could feel safe taking off your helmet, it’d be here.” You started gesturing with your hands as you spoke, your face a wide array of expressions as you tried to convince your Mandalorian. “It gets pitch black, like the Crest, darker even, since there aren’t any panels blinking on the walls. I’m not asking you to,” you hurriedly clarified, waving your hands in front of both him and yourself as you were still wrapped around him. “I’m just letting you know, since it’s been a while since you really got to spend some time out of that thing.”

When he didn’t answer, you added on, “I can leave the room.” Pointing over your shoulder towards the door, you shifted that way slightly. “Go to the kitchen, take a bath -hell, there’s even another guest room, I could-”

Suddenly the room was moving as he maneuvered out of your grip, rotating so his lower half was still hanging off the bed, his upper half holding you down. He’d turned onto his hip, his hands gently gripped your wrists on either side of your head, thumbs tracing over the skin in soothing lines while he peered down at you from inches away. Your chests bumped one another with every deeper breath, and you noticed he started to take, deep, even breaths with a smirk.

Just as you opened your mouth to say something, he beat you to it.

“Don’t go.” He tilted his head to the side just slightly, his voice low and playful. “Because if you go, then I follow you, then the kid comes- it’s a whole thing.”

“But-”

“I’m fine, mesh’la.”

“Okay,” you agreed, not believing a word of it.

The two of you stayed in that position for a long time, the only change when his forehead lightly came to rest on yours. Gently tugging your hands free after a while, he moved to get up, but you were quick to circle them around his neck, keeping him close.

“No, don’t move. Not yet.” Moving one hand, you began to knead it softly into his neck, smiling when he groaned and relaxed further into your touch. “You’re fine, huh?”

Incoherent grumbling vibrated out of the modulator next to your ear where his head had fallen, tucked into your neck.

“If you’re not gonna take it off- any of it- because I’m here, or because it a whole thing, or the bounty,” he grunted for you to go on, making you chuckle softly, starting to knead your other hand in as well, making him go slack into the mattress below the both of you. “As I was saying, if you can’t, then I’ll make it work.” Digging in on a particularly bad knot, you focused on it while you mused, “I think this one is specifically from that conversation with my dad.”

“Probably,” he moaned, his helmet basically pressed into the mattress by your head, only a bit of his weight on you, most on his hip. “I was so tense the whole time. I had no idea what I was doing.”

“Din Djarin out of his depth?” You playfully gasped, melting into giggles when his hand came and pinched your side in retribution.

“If it’s any consolation, you handled it exactly right,” you said. “Dad passed by in the hall right before you came back and I could sense the pride coming off of him. The content. You made him happy.”

“He could have told me,” Din grumbled. “Would have been nice to know.”

“I just told you,” you chuckled, your hands pulling away from his neck as he moaned in protest, only to groan in gratitude when they landed on his lower back and began to knead on the tension there. “You really need to invest in a better sleeping pad for the Crest. What’s there now is ruining your back.”

“What’s ruining my back is being an old man in armor.”

You stopped your movements, and he whined like a child. “Oh, because that’s the sound an old man makes.” Tilting your head, you tried to catch his gaze as he turned his visor just slightly toward you to glare, you could feel it.

“If I agree with you, will you continue?” He all but ground out, a little more of his weight relaxing onto you.

“What do you think?”

“That’s the problem. What you’re doing is making it hard to think. So just tell me, please.” He turned his head a bit more towards you. “Have mercy on an old man.”

You scoffed, starting your ministrations again as he let out a grateful sigh. “You’re not old. The kid is old. ….I can’t believe that sentence just left my mouth.” He chuckled. “Or that it made sense.”

“Okay, fine, I’m not. And you’re right, the sleeping pad is getting a bit threadbare. I’ll pick up a new one before we leave tomorrow.”

Narrowing your eyes at him, you dug in especially hard to a knot. “You’re just saying that because of what I’m doing, aren’t you?”

He groaned happily, nodding his head. “You want a bantha?” You choked on a laugh. “Now would be the time to ask.”

You let out a snort of laughter. “So anything I want, it’s mine?”

“Try me.” He didn’t even hesitate.

“That’s not a yes.”

“You’re very observant.”

“I don’t know if you’re very brave or very dumb to be messing with the person who is not only being nice to you, but being nice to you by digging their fingers into your most painful areas.” You pressed on a large knot with extra pressure for emphasis, rolling your eyes when he only went completely lax in your arms from glee. “Option three, then. Smart. You’re a smart man, apparently.”

“What does that make you?”

“How do you mean?”

“You fell for this smart man’s tricks. What does that make you?”

“Do you really want to go down this road, Din?”

“I’m wearing armor. I can handle it.”

And the two fold meaning of his words sunk in. Even if he didn’t mean it that way, it was how this whole conversation started. Feeling for you had scared him. The man in the beskar armor was afraid of the way he felt inside his chest. Something under his armor, behind his defenses. It must have felt almost like a betrayal.

Pulling your hands up to cup his cheeks, ignoring his almost whine of protest, you turned more on your side, rolling him more so as well in the process.

“I’m sorry I scared you, years ago.”

“What do you-”

“You’re right. You do wear armor. And I can only imagine how it felt to have something break past those defenses.”

It was nearly silent as you studied his visor, your reflection staring back at you in the low light. The only sounds were Grogu’s snoring, the muted drone of traffic several levels up, the quiet lull of street noises from below, and both of your quiet breaths.

“I hope you know you don’t have to keep wearing it for me.” Your eyes flitted between his, despite the visor. Somehow you knew. “If you want to, that’s okay. I understand. That’s part of who you are. But….” You took a surprisingly shaky breath, and his hand came to rest on your hip, his thumb tracing soothing patterns while he waited for you to finish. You had to screw your eyes shut to focus on the last few words. “But I just wanted you to know. I’d be your armor if you needed- wanted me to.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to open your eyes, the darkness so much easier to hide in. How ironic, since you had just offered him a way out of something similar.

The next thing you knew, the cool touch of beskar against your forehead for the third time tonight made you take in a shuddering breath.

“I’d like that,” you heard him rumble lowly, making you smile.

A long moment passed with just the two of you and shared space before you finally opened your eyes. “What’s going on in there, Tin Can?”

Din huffed out a soft laugh as he gave your hip a gentle squeeze. “I can’t decide which is prettier armor. You or beskar.”

Your arched brows of curiosity fell flat along with your tone. “Really?”

“You asked.” You could hear the smile in his voice.

“Okay. Moment’s over.” You pushed away from him, your hands already resting on his chest pressing him onto his back in the process.

“Mesh’la, come on. I was only teasing,” Din protested over a laugh, reaching a hand after you as you got under the covers.

You looked up at him, unimpressed. “If you say, ‘we both know it’s the beskar’, joke or not, so help me, a bad bed roll will be the least of your back pain worries.”

His hand recoiled slightly as if you had burned him. “Okay, that’s fair.”

You smirked. “I thought so.”

Din settled in under the light covers beside you, leaving the lamp on the floor by Grogu on. You were about to ask him if he could turn it off when you noticed him sitting up and looking at you.

“Truce?” He asked softly.

“Truce,” you grumbled after a minute, sighing. Mirroring him, you sat up and cocked your head to the side. “What?”

“Why do they call you firefly?”

A fond smile worked its way up your face, growing the more you thought about the nickname. Staring at the blanket, you worried a loose string between your fingers as you spoke.

“There’s not much life here on Coruscant, at least not naturally. People, beings, yes. But life…. No. We have a few parks the higher up you go, and at one point, someone tried to introduce wildlife into them. Nothing fancy, just some basic bugs and stuff from various planets so visiting senators could feel a little more at home.”

Grogu snored abruptly, pulling your eyes his way before they turned back to the visor still watching you intently. “I think he’s gone into a food coma.”

Din chuckled, looking at the child before leaning back against the headboard, hands behind his head as he relaxed. “Probably.” After he let out an easy breath, he gestured to you with a quick jut of his chin. “Continue.”

“What? Oh. Yes. Um.” Rolling the thread back and forth once again, you continued. “So anyway, down here, as you can tell from our wonderful and colorful streets here in the Uscru District, they didn’t do anything this low. There aren’t any parks for miles until you get closer to the atmosphere. Something about the ‘quality of air needed for life’, bantha shit because they could have cleaned it up for the citizens but I think they just don’t have a clean up crew brave enough to come down this far-” You took a deep breath.

“Sorry. Not the point. Anyway.” Din chuckled as you went on. “I was a kid, maybe ten? I’d sneak out on the roof to look up at the lanes of traffic overhead, pretend they were shooting stars. Sometimes they’d fly low enough I could just glimpse their clothes, usually brilliant ball gowns most likely headed for the senate or some fantastic party. The opera house is in the upper levels of the district, so more than likely they were headed there. I’d make up little stories for them, narrating what I thought they were saying, kriff, I was a weird kid.” Your palm slammed against your forehead as your chin tucked toward your chest, trying to hide your face.

A gloveless hand wrapped around your wrist, pulling it away gently. “No. That is a weird kid,” Din tilted his head toward Grogu behind him, making you smile. His fingers wove tightly through yours, and he brought your joined hands to rest softly on his knee. “Go on.”

Taking a deep breath, you did. “So one night I was out there, and I saw this trail of light almost like sparks getting closer and closer. Bobbing and weaving through the traffic like it had a mind of its own…. A speeder burst through the cloud and I thought for sure they would finally dissipate, but they sprang back together and kept going. It was like they had come just for me. They came straight to me, and swirled around me in a single line. I was so still, I had no idea what was going on. Of course my mom chose this moment to let me know she’d always known I went on the roof, and she’d always kept an eye on me when I had. She came out and explained what they were. Fireflies. From one of the parks. Once I realized it was something safe, I let my guard down, and I could feel them. There’s a connection with living things through the Force you just can’t mimic no matter how lifelike you make the technology.”

Din’s head was tilted fondly at you when you finally looked back up at him. “So that’s the story. It just kind of stuck.”

“Did you ever see the fireflies again?”

A wide grin broke out on your face. “Every night. They came for weeks. That was when I started really using my abilities for the first time. They offered me a connection to the Force I didn’t feel any other way, and I was able to grab that and focus on it, training my Force muscles, if you will.”

Din was silent for a long moment, and you were pretty sure he’d fallen asleep until he finally mused quietly, “After Tython, we’ll go somewhere with fireflies.”

Xxx

Tags: @ren-ni, @hoodedbirdie, @rennalouise, @kurlyfrasier, @what-the-heckin-heck, @deceiverofgodss, @littleshadow17, @nghtwngs, @yourcoolauntie, @queenmalhinewahine, @lam-ila, @jesseeka, @come-hell-or-eldren-fire, @creativeautistic, @lemonsandraspberries, @heyitsaloy, @987coley, @marvel-sw-lover, @just-shut-up-kid, @atlas-iswatching, @multifandomsw, @oliviajdjarin, @eeopxlt, @tomskookie, @venusacrossthestars, @sanscas, @veralii, @a-rose-of-amber, @i-own-loki, @lil-writer-523, @starry-supernova, @qweenrogerina, @darkenwolfie, @mischiefnevermanaged94, @tragerlover, @pxl8ed, @peonyophelia, @fullmoonshadowwrites, @Itsavicf, @professionalfangrrl, @immortalbloodhuntress, @scentedthingtidalwave, @reiya-djarin, @canvasandclay333, @fordo-kixed-rex, @jxvipike, @anidiotwhoreads, @sgt-morgan, @krussyfed, @lupinpetersclearwaterodairparker, @local-mr-frog, @itzagothamcitysiren, @jellybeanstacey0519, @piratequeen-impact, @cheoriemoawa, @crazyworldofsiani, @luvmeijii, @magic-without-bloop, @warmdragonfly, @ponyboys-sunsets, @dilfsaremyfavourite, @hello-th3r3, @thereaperisabitch, @seventhomen, @clichedream, @momc95, @zanzann, @witch-of-the-teapot, @h-owlpost, @djarintreble, @jamiethenerdymonster, @chaimantis, @nerdgirl-21, @myloveistoolittle, @Bellaaaspamsss What’s This?

227 notes · View notes

lovelylogans · 3 years

Text

the words you read (my heart’s been displayed)

how did you know 'cause I never told but you found out I've got a crush on you the words you read, my heart's been displayed you found out I've got a crush on you —“crush on you,” the jets

warnings: awkward clueless teenagers, crushes, slightly overbearing matchmaking uncles, mentions of government surveillance, mostly fluff, please let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairing: virgil/logan, secondary patton/roman and janus/remus

word count: 5,761

notes: this is for day 5 of @analogicalweek! the prompt of the day is “vocab card/skateboard” and i have decided to write about vocab card! please enjoy!

⁂

In Virgil’s opinion, Logan Sanders is the cutest boy in all of the sophomore grade.

He was the cutest boy in freshman year, too, and eighth grade, and seventh, and all the way back to kindergarten, but Logan’s changed over the summer.

He’s sprouted up a few inches, so now he’s a half-head taller than Virgil. He still looks a little gangly, like he’s going to grow more. He’d always been shorter than Virgil before. He’d gotten new glasses, too, black frames that suit him way better than the silver ovals he’d used when they were little. His voice has gotten a bit deeper, his jawline’s gotten stronger, and Virgil’s helpless crush on him has only grown with Logan.

Logan isn’t just cute, either, he’s smart. He carries around stacks of notecards, blank and filled in, and there’s all sorts of things written on it—interesting fun facts and the latest slang terms, in rubber-banded stacks next to rubber-banded stacks of notecards of terms that will be on their next exam. Logan has a way of explaining anything and everything in a way that is really understandable and never makes you feel dumb. Logan’s always top of the class.

And to make matters worse, they’re next-door-locker-neighbors this year, because Chloe-who-was-between-them-alphabetically moved away. Which means that Virgil cannot quite get away with admiring Logan from afar, the way he has since they were little. Which means that when school starts, on the first day when Logan asks him what homeroom he’s in this year, Virgil’s brain can only go ahhhhHHHHHH and the fact that oh my God Logan is tall now oh my GOD Logan has the locker next to mine now! makes him delay his answer because he’s just staring at Logan, and Logan looks at him a little oddly and then repeats his question as if he thinks Virgil didn’t hear him, and Virgil kind of wants to crawl into his locker to hide there forever thanks.

“Oh,” he manages. He closes his locker. “Um. I’m in Mr. Morales’ homeroom this year.”

Logan smiles at him. Logan SMILES AT HIM. And then he says, “I am, as well. Perhaps we’ll be seated next to each other in homeroom, in addition to being locker neighbors. I would enjoy that.”

He would ENJOY THAT!!!!!

Logan clears his throat and fiddles with his glasses, finally just pushing them a little further up his nose, even though they’re pretty high up on his nose already. “Would you like to walk together to Mr. Morales’ classroom? I was in his home economics class last year, I know where it is.”

“Um, sure,” Virgil says, voice cracking embarrassingly, and he considers opening his locker back up again so that he can hide there. He’s pretty skinny, he might be able to fit.

So they walk to Mr. Morales’ classroom. Logan’s the one talking, mostly; Virgil’s grateful for that, because he’d probably just be rambling nervously the whole time, and it’d be tempting fate to have his voice crack in front of Logan again. But now he can just listen to Logan’s various opinions about their summer reading for their English class, which is much safer. He sure has a lot of opinions about it, which makes Virgil sweat a little nervously—Logan sounds like he’s ready to sit down and write an essay about it, as if they’re going to have to, and Virgil’s pretty sure that if he sat down to take a multiple-choice quiz about that book right now he’d flunk it.

They end up not being assigned to sit next to each other. Mr. Morales says to just sit wherever, since they’re all going to go to an assembly once he takes attendance anyways, and that he probably won’t assign seats for the whole year.

And then Logan ends up sitting next to him anyways.

Like he really meant that he’d like to be next to Virgil in homeroom.

Mr. Morales smiles at them, and then, inexplicably, gives Logan a double thumbs up? And then Logan’s cheeks go kind of red? Logan turns his face away from Mr. Morales, turning to more fully face Virgil.

“You were in his class last year, right?” Virgil says.

“Erm, yeah. Yes. I was.” Logan clears his throat, turning away from him. “He supervises my study hall, too.” Then he mumbles, “also he’s my uncle.”

“He’s your uncle?” Virgil repeats. This is news to him.

“Through marriage,” Logan explains. “Mr. Regnant is my father’s brother.”

Mr. Regnant is the arts-and-music teacher, and, though they don’t talk about it very much (students do, but then, students always gossip), Mr. Morales’ husband.

Mr. Regnant is also, not that Virgil would ever tell him so, Virgil’s favorite teacher.

“Which dad?” Virgil says, because Logan’s two dads were basically his only version of real-life gay representation when they were really little. He knows Mr. Sanders better than Logan’s other dad.

Mr. Sanders always volunteered to be part of the PTA moms who supervised them during holiday parties and field trips, though, looking back, he doesn’t think the PTA moms liked him very much. The kids, on the other hand, loved Mr. Sanders, who would treat them like very short adults and once a year would bring in his mamba Eve for kids to pet and hold.

Logan’s other Dad had been the one who encouraged the kids to throw paints and roll around in the mud and tear things up. Logan’s other Dad had come to supervise one holiday party and was politely asked to never do so again.

“Not Pa—I mean, Janus,” Logan says, looking briefly embarrassed. “He’s Dad’s—Remus’—twin brother.”

Virgil makes an “ohhh” sound, because that makes sense. Now he’s thinking about it, Mr. Regnant and Logan’s dad really do look alike, if one looked past their contrasting senses of style.

“That’s cool, though,” Virgil says thoughtfully. “That you’re related, I mean. Mr. Morales is really nice.”

“Yes, he is,” Logan says. “It’s been a bit strange to adjust to calling him Mr. Morales instead of Uncle Patton, though.”

“Yeah, I guess it probably would be,” Virgil says.

The bell rings, and Mr. Morales ushers them off to the assembly.

Logan sits down next to him on the bleachers at the assembly, too. Their knees bump together as they listen to the principal welcome them back from summer vacation and give some announcements.

And Logan keeps sitting down next to him.

At lunch, in their two shared classes, in homeroom. He wishes Virgil a good morning and good afternoon every day at their locker. As the months of the school year slowly creep by, Virgil definitely does kind of feel like crawling into his locker, sometimes, but less and less so, because.

Because he and Logan are kind of friends now.

Logan asks him about his favorite hot beverage and then starts bringing him chai when he and his uncles stop by a café before school. Virgil sketches out drawings of astronauts and space when Logan goes on a loving tirade about it that lasts, on-and-off, for a week.

He still definitely has a crush on Logan. His increased presence near him is both a blessing and a curse.

They share earbuds and laugh at videos in homeroom, they sit quietly side-by-side and do their homework together in study hall. Virgil even tags along, sometimes, when Logan takes time out of his day to visit his uncles. His uncles always seem delighted whenever Virgil drops by, which Virgil guesses makes sense—Mr. Morales is just kind of Like That, and he’s been taking classes with Mr. Regnant since freshman year, and they’ve been sassing at each other for just about as long.

Logan makes those visits rare, though. He always seems a little self-conscious about how excited his uncles are during their visits, the way they elbow Logan and give him thumbs-ups and wiggle their eyebrows. Virgil doesn’t really get it—he thinks it’s nice that his uncles are so excited to see Logan with his friend.

But then his mom unexpectedly comes by and drops off his lunch and ruffles Virgil’s hair right in front of Logan, and Virgil spends the rest of the day going beet red even Logan assures him that it’s okay and he thinks it’s nice, something in his brain... clicks. A little bit. Even though it doesn’t make sense.

Does Logan...?

No, his brain tells him. There’s no way.

But Virgil keeps an eye out for the next week anyways.

On Monday, Logan’s uncles give him a ride to school and also drive him by the café, so Logan hands over a chai for Virgil. Virgil smiles and thanks him.

Have Logan’s ears always gone red whenever Virgil thanks him for bringing him tea?

On Tuesday, their fingers brush when Logan’s passing over a stack of notecards for Virgil to study for an upcoming exam during their study hall. Simultaneously, they look away from each other, redirecting their attention to their textbooks.

Have they always done that?

On Wednesday, Logan and Virgil swing by Mr. Morales’ classroom. After Virgil laughs at a somewhat sarcastic comment that Logan says, and redirects his attention to the sketch he’s been doing to turn in for approval for his end-of-semester art project, he peeks through his bangs to see Mr. Morales waving his hands eagerly, and Logan go red and gesture sharply for him to stop.

Has Mr. Morales always been so excited whenever he and Logan spend time in his classroom?

On Thursday, Logan seems chilled by the overenthusiastic air conditioning, so Virgil gives him a spare hoodie he had in his locker. Logan looks at him, looks away, and then proceeds to huddle in Virgil’s hoodie for the rest of the day, even after the school adjusts the temperature and it isn’t quite so cold.

By then, his brain saying no way! No way, you cannot afford to be wrong on this so you aren’t even going to try, there’s no way—

It’s after school on Thursday, and Virgil makes sure Logan has already gone home when he descends the stairs to Mr. Regnant’s art-and-music studio.

“Oh, Virgil, hey,” Mr. Regnant says, distracted, looking up from the sheet music he’s laying out across four desks. “Gimme a second, I’ve got the feedback for your sketch on my desk somewhere—”

Virgil looks to Mr. Regnant’s desk. He can’t even see the mug of pens on his desk that Virgil knows is there, it’s so buried in papers and models and paint palette piles. It’s like an avalanche waiting to happen.

“Uh, that’s not—you can give it to me tomorrow,” Virgil says awkwardly. “Um. That’s not why I’m here.”

Mr. Regnant blinks at him. “All right.”

“I,” he wipes his hands on his jeans and grimaces, not quite believing that he’s about to do this. “I need advice.”

Mr. Regnant pauses, before he manages to find an empty desk and sets down the sheet music. “Okay.”

“Before I say anything,” he says. “I need you to give me this advice as Mr. Regnant, faculty supervisor of the GSA club.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Regnant says. “Yeah, ‘course, Virgil. I’m always—”

“Mr. Regnant, faculty supervisor of the GSA club, is a separate person from Mr. Regnant, Logan’s Uncle Roman,” Virgil interrupts, twisting his fingers together anxiously. “Right?”

Mr. Regnant opens his mouth. Closes it. He gestures for Virgil to sit on one of the choir risers, settling there himself, but Virgil sits on the floor. This is a time in which floor-sitting is necessary.

“He could be,” Mr. Regnant says eventually.

“Well I need him to be,” Virgil snaps. “Okay?”

Mr. Regnant presses his lips together and nods.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice a little higher pitched. His lips twitch and he clears his throat. “Yeah! Yeah.”

“Oh my God, you’re about to laugh at me,” Virgil says, horrified. “I knew this was a terrible idea, forget it—”

“No!” Mr. Regnant says hastily. “No I’m not, no I’m not. I swear I’m not. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is not about to laugh.”

“Is Mr. Regnant Logan’s uncle about to laugh?!”

“I thought they were different people,” Mr. Regnant sasses back, seemingly on instinct, and Virgil buries his face in his hands and screams a little bit. Just a little bit.

“Shi—shoot, I mean shoot!” He says, and tugs lightly at Virgil’s arm. Virgil peeks at Mr. Regnant from between his fingers.

Mr. Regnant’s face is very serious. There is no more sign of lip-twitching, throat-clearing, or mirth in his eyes.

“Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is here and listening,” he says. “Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA does not have any relatives to speak of. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA does not have any twin brothers or nephews. What on earth even are those? Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA would have no idea. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA doesn’t even have parents, or a husband, that’s how absolutely relative-less he is. Okay?”

“Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is an asshole,” Virgil mutters.

“Faculty supervisor of the GSA is starting to not sound like words anymore,” Mr. Regnant says, “also, you are so lucky school is technically over, otherwise I would have totally given you a detention for language.”

“You’re such a hypocrite, you literally just almost swore.”

“Almost,” Mr. Regnant says, “is not the same as did. Now. What can I do for you, Virgil?”

Virgil takes a deep breath in.

“What do you do if you think the boy you have a crush on likes you back?”

Mr. Regnant’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, but otherwise, he doesn’t react.

“You could talk to him?”

“Okay, maybe I should be more specific,” Virgil says, “What do you do if you have an anxiety disorder, and you think the boy you have a crush on likes you back?”

“I know you’re not gonna like this,” Mr. Regnant says, “but my answer is still you could talk to him.”

He holds up a hand before Virgil can protest. “I know it can be scary, I know it can be anxiety-inducing. I know that can be a deterrent for a perfectly neurotypical person, let alone someone who’s got a diagnosed anxiety disorder. But, I mean. Your only options, as I see them, are, A, tell him, or B, sit quietly and wait for him to maybe make the first move.”

“But how can I be sure?” He says.

“Well, why do you think he likes you back?” Mr. Regnant says reasonably.

So Virgil tells him. Virgil tells him all about it—thinking he was cute since they were kids, then suddenly becoming friends this year: the chai, the sketches, the music listening, the blushing and the awkward chats, and how they’re friends now but Virgil still really likes him in a romantic way.

“Does that sound like he likes me back?” he asks anxiously.

Mr. Regnant bites his lip. “As the faculty supervisor of the GSA? I think it could definitely be likely.”

“Likely?” Virgil wails.

“Well, as the faculty supervisor of the GSA,” Mr. Regnant enunciates carefully, “I can’t be certain.”

“I can’t go and tell him based on if it’s just likely! I need to be sure he likes me back or else there’s a chance he says he doesn’t like me and then I’m going to have a heart attack and die!”

“Virgil! As the faculty supervisor of the GSA! I really think you should go for it!”

Mr. Regnant looks like he’s about to reach out and start shaking Virgil by the shoulders. His eyes are huge, the way he always looks at actors onstage who have forgotten their lines, like by just staring at them he’ll be able to psychically impart the script to them.

“Forget it,” Virgil groans and reaches for his backpack, swinging it over his shoulders and standing up. “I’m doomed to suffer in silence. Thanks, I guess, I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Please don’t tell anyone I told you all this.”

As Virgil is closing the classroom door behind him, he’s pretty sure he hears Mr. Regnant screeching.

Honestly, Virgil should be the one screeching. He can’t believe he just told him all that—who knows if Mr. Regnant will be able to keep the information of a crush concerning his nephew to himself?!

⁂

“Okay, here’s your mocha-with-extra-espresso, please don’t tell your Dads,” Uncle Patton says cheerfully, passing back a to-go cup to Logan. “And the chai! I think it’s very sweet that you keep getting this for him, kiddo.”

“Gestures are a good way to express affection,” Logan says anxiously, carefully setting the chai in a cupholder. “I’ve been trying to vary my approaches based off the five love languages. I’m not sure if it’s working.”

Uncle Roman in the passenger seat, his arm thrown over his eyes, makes a sound of great discontent, the way he’s been doing for the past week whenever Uncle Patton has tried to give him any advice concerning Virgil.

“Are you okay, Uncle Roman?” Logan asks again.

“Thinking about being the faculty supervisor to the GSA,” Uncle Roman moans, as if in pain.

“Is the club schedule about to be particularly busy?” Logan asks, frowning. “You typically enjoy your work with the GSA.”

“You could say that,” Uncle Roman says tightly, then groans again.

“Well, if there’s anything I can do personally, in order to relieve any undue stress,” Logan begins, but is cut off by Uncle Roman shrieking.

“Um,” Logan says, looking to Uncle Patton, who snorts, shaking his head.

“He just, um,” Uncle Patton says. “Well, I think something’s happened, except he told me he can’t tell me what it is without betraying someone’s trust, so.”

“I see,” Logan says, frowning, except for the part where he doesn’t see, really. But that happens fairly frequently with Papa and Dad. Honestly, it’s rather curious that Uncle Roman has not acted in a way that seems strange to outsiders. Dad does it all the time, and they’re twins.

Oh, well. He’s sure he’ll understand eventually.

“I’m fine,” Uncle Roman says, and he sniffs loudly. “I’m fine, it’s all—fine.”

Uncle Patton pats his hand sympathetically, before directing their car to school.

Logan sips his drink, before he says idly, “I think I’m going to tell him I’ve had a crush him today.”

Uncle Roman immediately spews coffee onto the windshield in an impressive spit-take. It is hilarious. Even though Uncle Roman is choking a little.

Uncle Patton meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, his eyes bright with excitement. “Really?!”

“Really,” Logan confirms. “I mean, it’s been—it’s been a couple months. We are friendly enough. I do not think that Virgil will discard our friendship if I confess that I have had a crush on him since last year.”

“Well!” Uncle Patton says, so flustered that he accidentally turns on the windshield wipers when he means to signal a turn, and then when he tries to fix that he turns on his hazard lights, before he manages to get the car under control again. “Well, that’s great, kiddo! I’m so excited for you!”

“You are the smartest kid I know,” Uncle Roman says, turning in his seat to face Logan, his expression near-worshipful. “I love you.”

“Um. Thank you?”

“I know you don’t believe in psychics, but are you—?”

“Why are you bringing up psychics?” Logan says, perplexed. “I figured—well, I’ll tell him. And it is time that the Halloween festival will begin this weekend. That seems like a date that Virgil would enjoy.”

“Right,” Uncle Roman says. “Okay. Well—go for it! Please go for it!”

“I have already told you I will,” he says.

“I think it’s gonna go great if you go for it!”

Strange. Uncle Roman is acting as if he has had too much caffeine. As far as Logan is aware, the beverage they have just stopped to get is his first coffee of the day, and he does not metabolize the effects of coffee that quickly.

“Right,” Logan says, adjusting his glasses and taking a sip of his coffee. Then, “Right.”

Then, “What if he says he doesn’t like me back?”

Uncle Roman throws his arm across his eyes and makes that same groaning sound again.

Uncle Patton absentmindedly reaches over and bracingly rubs Uncle Roman’s thigh, again meeting Logan’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Well, kiddo, if he says he doesn’t like you back,” he says, then frowns. “It’s understandable to be disappointed, or a little bit upset, but it’s important to accept his answer graciously and kindly. No means no. No is a full sentence. But Virgil seems like a very nice boy, I can’t imagine he’ll be very mean about it at all, and you two have gotten close over the past few months. It might be kind of awkward for a bit, but with a little work, your friendship will be able to survive it.”

“I suppose,” Logan says quietly, looking down at his lap.

“But,” Uncle Patton adds hastily, “I think the chances are really good for him saying yes to the date! We both do, don’t we, Roman?”

Uncle Roman lets out a very strangled “mm-hmm.”

Logan chews his lip, before he says timidly, “Can I borrow one of your phones to call my Dads?”

“Cupholder, just a bit in front of ya,” Patton says cheerfully. “You already know the password.”

Logan does. He swipes it in—his uncles’ wedding date—and presses on Papa’s contact number. Dad’s phone is lost more often than not, and almost always turns up in strange places, like inside the gateau he’d tried to make, or inside the neighbor’s rain gutters.

His father picks it up almost immediately.

“Patton, if this is about the adopt-a-thon, if I have told you once I have told you a thousand times—”

“Um, hi, Papa,” Logan says awkwardly; he does not want to get into the family squabble about sharing a pet between their households again. Eve is a sufficient pet, even if she’s not as cuddly as Uncle Patton might like.

His father’s voice transforms from chiding to concerned in a second. “Logan, is everything all right?”

“Yes, everyone is operating under adequate parameters,” Logan says. “Is Dad there?”

There’s the sound of something crashing in the background, as if on cue. Knowing Dad, it might have been.

“I’ll get him,” Papa says wearily.

He hears his Papa say Remus, our son is on the phone, please put down the—Uh, Jan, sexy-pie! I thought you were! On the way to work!—what the—REMUS, we’ve TALKED about this, how did you lay hands on a HERON—and then the conversation gets a good deal more muffled. He is pretty sure that Papa is shouting at Dad about capturing local wildlife again.

He waits patiently, before he hears the clatter of the phone being passed into someone’s hands, and Dad asks, “Did someone die?! Do you need help covering up a murder?!”

“Remus, please,” Papa groans, “the boy is too smart to implicate himself by opening the opportunity to be recorded over the phone lines.”

“That’s right, Logie-bear, the government is always watching,” Dad says solemnly. “Big brother, all hail. Also lean over and give my little brother a wet-willie for me, it’d be so funny—”

Logan, accustomed to conversations of this tone since birth, continues stolidly onward. “I’m going to tell Virgil I like him today.”

“Finally!” Dad hoots.

“That’s excellent, Logan,” Papa says placidly. “Please know that I am fully aware of the misogynistic roots of the what are your intentions discussion, and I’ve been doing research in order to make our version as feminist as possible. Also, your father has been warned to discuss minimal amounts of gore when he comes to our home.”

“What is the point of a shovel talk then!”

“We already agreed no shovel talk,” Papa says irritably. “When we threaten the boy, we’ll do it subtly.”

“Please don’t threaten him,” Logan says anxiously. “I don’t even know if he likes me back yet.”

“Of course he likes you back!” Dad says, outraged on his behalf. “Why the hell wouldn’t he like you back?!”

“How did you two know that you loved each other?” Logan asks. The question feels slightly childish, and he feels even more so when he curls up in his car seat, but he cannot deny the posture brings a certain level of comfort.

There’s a pregnant pause.

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Papa says.

“I’m sixteen in a matter of weeks!”

Dad makes an absurd gagging noise, because he is ridiculously averse to the concept of Logan (and therefore, himself and Papa) aging. Logan thinks that it might have to do with a latent existential crisis, but he has not asked, because knowing Dad, he will spin it out into thirteen separate absurd reasons, and ten of them will make Logan cringe away, repulsed.

“Trust my judgment on this,” Papa says. “You do not want to know the origins of how our romance developed. However, when we actually had the discussion concerning feelings, your father—”

“I wrote him a beautiful letter in my best calligraphy,” Dad says proudly, then, “You probably don’t want to hear about the ink, do you?”

“Is it disgusting?” Logan asks warily.

“Quite, but,” then, in a voice that literally every other person wouldn’t realize is Papa’s version of profound sappiness, “that’s your father.”

There is the sound of kissing. Logan resists the urge to make a gagging noise of his own, because somehow, he is the mature one in the entire family.

“As it is, just,” Papa says, then sighs. “I cannot believe I am about to give such... Pattonish advice. But. As it is, just be yourself. If this boy likes you back—”

“—as he should, and if he doesn’t he’s in desperate need of a lobotomy,” Dad mutters.

“—then he will like you for you, just the way you are,” Papa says, as if Dad had not said anything remotely worrying. “Tap into your strengths, Logan. You are intelligent, and observant, and thoughtful—”

“—and the best son there is—”

“Well, that goes without saying, clearly,” Papa says. “As long as your confession comes from you, then there is no way that it can go wrong. You are simply too excellent a person for it not to.”

“Even if it turns out he doesn’t like me?” Logan says timidly.

“If it does, then have your uncle forge an excuse note for you to get out of school early today and we’ll plot accordingly,” Papa says evasively. “But I do not think that outcome likely.”

Logan chews his lip. Papa is the best liar he knows, but—

But hearing his encouragement is too comforting to really analyze if he is lying.

“Thanks, Dads.”

“Knock him dead, kid!” Dad shouts. “And if he doesn’t then I will!”

“What did we just say about discussing potential evidence over the phone lines,” Papa scolds, and Logan hangs up, smiling.

Just be yourself.

Uncle Pattonish advice it may be, it has given him an idea.

⁂

Waiting over this past week to see if Mr. Regnant will crack and spill to Mr. Morales, or even worse, Logan himself, has been absolutely agonizing and Virgil’s kicking himself over going to Mr. Regnant for advice surrounding Logan at all.

That morning, though, Mr. Morales is at his desk, and a chai is waiting for Virgil at their usual spot, but Logan is nowhere to be seen. Virgil tries his hardest not to act too much like he’s keeping an eye out for Logan, but he is pretty sure he’s not succeeding, because Mr. Morales is smiling at him way too wide.

He actually seems really excited about something. Like, Mr. Morales usually gets excited when it’s fresh chocolate chip cookie day at lunch, but this is beyond the pale for fresh chocolate chip cookie day. Maybe the assembly they have today is something special? Except Virgil’s pretty sure it’s to pass out honors for the last quarter and talk about fall sports. That’s nothing particularly special.

Logan slides into his seat just before the bell rings, though, wrapping a rubber band around one of his notecard stacks. It’s a thin stack, it must be for something that’s just started; usually Logan compiles every unit of every class into thick stacks, able to be differentiated by the different colors of the notecards. These are just basic white ones.

He fiddles with it, darting looks to Virgil as Patton takes attendance, and, as they’re all filing out of the door, Logan holds out the stack of notecards.

“Here,” he blurts out.

Virgil blinks. “I don’t think we have a test soon?”

“They’re not for a test,” Logan says. “Just—take them. Read them during assembly. Please,” he adds belatedly.

“Uh,” Virgil says and takes them. “Okay?”

“Okay!” Logan says and nods. “Okay. Okay. Great! Um—please take your time to consider them carefully, and I await your response,” and then he practically runs off to fall into line near Mr. Regnant.

So that’s... weird.

But Virgil sticks the notecards into his hoodie pocket, anyways, ready to read them during assembly like Logan directed.

He waits until the principal is droning on about the importance of school spirit to take the notecards out of his pocket.

He spares a glance for Logan—who is several rows ahead, near the faculty, sitting next to Mr. Morales and Mr. Regnant, Mr. Morales occasionally reaching over to rub Logan’s shoulder bracingly—and then angles the notecards so that a teacher looking into the crowd wouldn’t really be able to see them.

He stares at the title on the top notecard. Blinks hard. Blinks again. Looks down at Logan’s back, then back to the notecard.

Reasons why I have a crush on Virgil.

He reaches over to pinch himself. Nope. Not dreaming, then.

And Logan really doesn’t seem like the type of person to make a joke like this.

He flips the cards and reads them slowly, savoring each and every word written in Logan’s blocky, neat script.

He is exceptionally witty.

He is knowledgeable about a great many things, such as music, art, spiders, novels, and mental health issues.

He is sarcastic.

He is thoughtful and deliberate in the formation of his opinions, even ones as small as the proper preparation of chai.

He is very handsome.

He is never rude without reason, and when he is rude, it is usually because the other person is “an asshole” and should be receiving backlash.

He is a remarkably talented artist.

Virgil keeps reading on, he is, he is, he is...

When he gets to the end—I would like to take you on a date. I would also like to be boyfriends, though I understand if you would like to table that conversation until we have established a rapport. Please let me know if you would be amenable to that suggestion.—he feels kind of dizzy. His throat is tight, his heart is pounding, and his hands are so sweaty he’s had to wipe them off on his jeans twice already.

Is it really possible that someone as wonderful as Logan would think of him so highly?

It’s like he’s describing someone entirely different—awkward, anxious Virgil couldn’t possibly be the snarky, witty, caring, deep-thinking guy that Logan’s writing about. There’s just no way. But, Virgil thinks, heart twisting, but Logan doesn’t lie about things like this. Is this the way Logan sees him?

Is it really possible that someone as wonderful as Logan would have a crush on him at all?

He likes Virgil. He wants to take Virgil on a date. He wants Virgil to be his boyfriend.

There’s the rumbling of everyone standing up from the bleachers, and Virgil jumps—has it really been the entire assembly?—and hastily gets to his feet, so he won’t get swept up in the crowd of students returning to their classrooms.

As he’s heading for the door, Logan practically materializes in front of him, hugging his books tightly to his chest.

“Did you read them?” He asks fretfully. Now that Virgil’s close to him, face-to-face, he isn’t sure if he’s ever seen Logan so nervous. He isn’t sure if he’s seen Logan nervous at all. Logan’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, drumming his fingers on his books, holding the books like they’re a teddy bear.

“Do you,” Virgil says, his voice cracks, and he clears his throat. “You really like me?”

“Since last year,” Logan admits.

“I’ve liked you since kindergarten,” Virgil blurts out.

Logan blinks at him, jaw dropping. Then he says, “Really?!”

“Really,” Virgil promises. “My mom has this journal entry saved where I kept writing about how I was going to be Mr. Virgil Sanders, oh my God, she’s going to be so embarrassing about this—”

Logan snorts, ducking his head. “You’ve withstood my uncles handily.”

“Your uncles are cool, though,” Virgil says, confused.

“My uncles are embarrassing,” Logan says, “and my Dads are going to be so weird, I’m very sorry in advance, but—but if you can handle all of that, then I’d—I’d really like to take you out to the Halloween festival. I’d really really like that.”

Virgil’s smiling so wide that it hurts his face. “I’d really really like that too.”

And then the bell rings, and the pair of them jump at the sudden loud noise.

“I—we have to go to class,” Logan says, sounding very put out.

“Yeah,” Virgil says, then, “I’ll see you at lunch?”

Logan beams at him. “Lunch sounds wonderful.”

Virgil hesitates, before he reaches out and places a hand on Logan’s shoulder. He leans in and presses his lips to Logan’s cheek.

Logan’s bright red when he pulls away.

“Lunch?” Virgil confirms.

“Lunch,” Logan squeaks out, his voice cracking.

They emerge from under the bleachers, and have to split ways. Even when Mr. Regnant pulls him out into the hall under the guise of talking about his project and starts whisper-shouting about “do you know how HARD IT WAS to keep QUIET when i KNEW all along that you both LIKED each other bacK,” even when Mr. Morales ducks his head into his math class to pass over papers and gives Virgil some super-obvious thumbs up, even after he texts his Mom and his mom sends him screenfuls of exclamation points and immediately asks him to invite Logan over so that she can show Logan all of Virgil’s baby pictures—

Virgil cannot stop smiling.

#my post #text #my fic #analogical #analogicalweek #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction #virgil sanders #logan sanders

125 notes · View notes