aang, in all his avatar glory, is not above tongue-fucking his cum right back into your quivering, convulsing pussy. his wide, stupefied eyes glow white as he licks and scoops and sucks with relentless obsession, lithe tongue sweeping across your folds with striking precision only a master of the four elements could possess. powerful arms pin your thighs against the mattress while roughened hands palm over your lower stomach, cradling the skin above your uterus with something almost reverent in their touch.
“it has to take. . .” he’s mumbling to himself, practically incoherent, but you can still hear the raw desperation threaded through his guttural chanting. “has to, has to, has to—!”
“a-aang, mmph! what’s wrong? did something happen on your trip—?” you whimper through the haze of overstimulation, hands scrambling against his coiled shoulders as you search for something to ground yourself with. he’s been at it for hours, ever since he returned from his home air temple. had stormed into your shared bedroom with the doors rattling against the walls behind him, barely a greeting leaving his mouth before he was climbing over you, frantic hands shoving the hefty layers of his robes and beads from his body like they’ve suddenly become unbearable.
in mere seconds he had you striped and flat on your back.
then on all fours.
and then on your side and everything else in between.
the room is in absolute shambles— feathers spilling from torn pillows and swirling through the air in frantic, whirling currents. the bed barely remains intact beneath you, headboard split apart and canopy hanging in splintered ruin, all of it unable to withstand the force of him as the elements hum beneath his tortured skin.
“aang, honey, are you— hah!— okay? talk to me, baby. please.”
what new revelation could he have possibly had for him to suddenly fold you into a million different positions?
and you tried to run, to tap out after the nth round, but did you really think you could escape the hold of an avatar in his avatar state? a handsome, beefy, six-foot-five, one-hundred-something kilogram man so utterly desperate to revive an entire bloodline, yet far too in love to want to do it with anyone else but you?
aang’s voice comes out rough, wrecked with pathetic want. “need to get you pregnant,” he finally admits, lips never leaving your twitching clit. “need it right fucking now.”
his sharp, unfamiliar words send a shiver down your spine.
he begrudgingly sits up, one hand keeping you spread for him while the other drags down his chiseled abs, ghosting over the twin downward arrows that curl just above his v–line. he fists his burly cock in slow, measured strokes as he readies another thick load, bright eyes trailing from your flushed face to your heaving breasts, tongue-in-cheek.
your heart jumps. you know that look. “aang, i know how much reviving air bending means to you, the duty you have to your people—” you start in an attempt to soothe.
because when he gets like this you tend to wobble for weeks.
he cuts you off with a dry, humorless chuckle. “you think that’s what this is about?” he tilts his head, eyes narrowing.
you could only gulp in response.
then, he’s rising above you, broad, muscular shoulders boxing you in as he settles between your thighs. the heavy heat of his dick presses against your sensitive, aching entrance, his incandescent gaze dragging over your face like he’s trying to memorize every expression, every shaky inhale.
as if he was mapping out your features to store in the forefront of his mind. to painfully revisit over and over again.
the realization that had struck him back at the temple as he looked at every mural, every worn painting and towering statue of the air nomads. they all looked like his people. familiar faces, familiar smiles, familiar powers.
but none of them resembled you.
none carried the curve of your lashes or the little furrow in your brow when you worried. none had your laugh, the unique slope of your nose, your warmth, your favor for sour over sweet, your gentleness for children and particular bugs. none exuded your enchanting presence, whether you could bend or not. and suddenly, the grief that sat in his chest for years changed shape entirely. because what would be the point of preserving the world he lost if, in doing so, he lost every trace of the person he loved most within it?
“this—this isn’t about me reviving airbenders or a duty to save my dying culture. this isn’t about avatar sonam or tagah or monk gyatso or anything that has to do with bending. this is about you and me and me wanting to start a family with you,” he states with that heavy, solid avatar voice of his. firm and sure, thumb brushing along your jaw, “this is about me making sure that a part of you will always exist in a world where the avatar exists. that your lips, your eyes, your soul. . . live on for eternity. so that every time i look into this world through the eyes of the new avatar, i can still see you. see you in our grandchildren, in our great-great grandchildren, in the people that will come to exist because we loved each other. . . to know that you’ll always be in my life someway, somehow.”
“aang. . .”
“i realize now that there will come a day when airbending returns, whether in our lifetime or long after we’re gone.” he presses his forehead against yours, tone softer despite the ache in his words. “i know that i’ll get to see that vision through the eyes of the avatars who will come after me. and if i keep chasing impossible answers, impossible resolves— if i keep throwing myself at a future i can’t force into existence— i’ll lose you in the process. i’ll waste the little time we’re given together. with our friends. with our children. the thought of losing you to time. . .”
it killed him.
“what would become of you if i go down this path?”
and you feel it. the shift in him. the sincerity behind every broken word, every trembling breath. the sheer despair that claws through him at the thought of you leaving nothing behind of yourself, of the love the two of you share. the regret he’d forever live with if he only prioritized the revival of air-bending or the kids that would inherit it. and the fact that he still hasn’t left the avatar state only makes it worse, every emotion stripped raw and vulnerable beneath glowing eyes and tattoos and shaking hands.
“so i vow now that i will never neglect your life or your culture for the sake of mine. whether we have airbending children or not. . . that is up to the universe.”
his hands cup your cheeks gently as he leans in, drawing you into a slow, sloppy kiss. you could only gasp softly when his tongue slips past your lips, kissing you like he’s trying to seal his fate with yours.
he slowly pulls away, thick fingers easing you open as he makes room for himself. “i can live without other airbenders. i can make due with the acolyte family we’ve founded. what i cannot live without is you. what i cannot imagine not ingrained in this world beyond my lifetime is you.”
aang smiles for the first time tonight, like the image in his mind was far more beautiful than anything he could’ve ever imagined. he sinks inside, massive and overwhelming, drawing a raspy breath from your lungs at the sheer stretch of him. still, you pull him closer, wanting nothing more than to feel the slow, heavy drag of him inside you.
“aang!”
“sh, deep breaths, baby. yes, like that. be good. so fuckin’ tight and warm. fuck, there we go. was made for this.” and he settles there for a minute, buried at the hilt. “my sweet, perfect, silly girl.”
his body hums as you shake beneath him.
“so for now,” he whispers, breath warm against your lips as he begins moving slowly, in and out, “all i want is a child with you. one that embodies everything that you are. one that will carry on your memory, your curiosity, your strength, your traits.” gone was the glow of the avatar state, the white fading slowly from his eyes until they were simply his again, fixed on yours with a tenderness so deep it was almost unbearable. “so i’m begging you. . . give me a baby that looks just like you.”
you cry out helplessly as he buries his face into your throat, holding you impossibly close. every stroke is long and deliberate, driven far less by hunger and more by an emotion too large for words. the slick of your arousal coats his balls as you helplessly grind against him, cunt fluttering around the girthiness of his base. you could feel all the veins that line him, tracing your walls as he fucked you like he needed you to breathe.
you blink back the tears threatening to spill. “b-but i do want our baby to be like you. i do want to help you—”
he shakes his head fervently, fingers tightening around you like he’s afraid you still don’t understand. “no. no,” he rasps, “i don’t want this to be some duty you carry for me. i want this because it’s us. because it’s the life we chose together. no obligations. no sacrifices.”
you feel the dampness at the corner of his eyes as he clings to you, hands roaming your body in a worship-like trance, as though he was reassuring himself that you were real and here and present and his. to have and to hold and to sink himself into when the world is in chaos.
“please,” he croaks hoarsely into your neck, voice cracking around the word, and the raw vulnerability in it makes your chest ache more than anything else ever could. “say you’ll give me a baby, sweetheart. say you’ll give me this one thing. even if they come without air-bending.”
a broken sound leaves your throat as you cling to his shoulders, nodding desperately against him, back arching into his warmth. “yes,” you breathe out shakily, fingers curling around his nape. “yes, yes, yes. of course, i will.”
the words—your defining proclamation—undo him entirely. he groans into the curve of your neck, holding you so tightly it almost hurts, every breath hot, cold, then hot again against your skin. you run a hand down his spine, flattening your palm against the scar on his back.
his hand glides down the length of your stomach until it finds your sensitive clit. his thumb traces slow, firm circles over the small, aching bundle of nerves, each deliberate stroke sending another wave of pleasure through you. your vision flashes white as your body trembles, every muscle tightening before you shudder beneath his touch. he follows as he cums in thick, long spurts, coating your insides pearly white as you cream on his cock, legs caging him in. his tattoos begin to faintly glow once more as he shivers, hips still pumping his seed into you, forehead pressed beneath your jaw, as though he can’t bear even an inch of distance between you.
when he finally pulls back, his eyes have returned to their natural state, shining with something far softer than desire.
devotion, perhaps. a need to always keep you safe. to give you—and your children—a world that offers everything and takes nothing in return.
“i love you,” he murmurs softly, brushing the damp strands of your hair from your face. he rests his forehead against yours again, eyes slipping closed as his heart, for once, is at ease. “thank you.”
your lips tremble into a tired smile, fingers curling weakly around his head. “you never have to thank me for loving you.”
though your words alone could never truly capture the depth of everything you’ve given him.
synopsis . Your boyfriend reaching the avatar state when he’s close. content . afab!reader, improper use of air bending, established relationship, dirty talk, missionary, pet names, he (nervously) talks you through it, praise, implied/slight breeding kink, etc.
author's note: i’d lick the sweat off his bald head if he let me.
You should’ve known something was up when the bedroom’s lanterns began to flicker.
But with the way Aang's hips snapped down against yours in such a relentlessly missionary rhythm—plump cock smothered deep within the juicily squelching walls of your pussy—it was hard to focus on anything else outside of the way he stretched you open.
HIs breaths came in searing pants against your neck, one gripping hand braced beside your head whilst his free one occupied itself with one of your thighs, tugging your leg impossibly higher around his waist just so that he could fuck you at that pinpointingly perfect angle.
"Ohhh, that's ittt, sweet girl. T-Taking me so well," Aang murmured as his eyes locked onto yours with shimmers of honest adoration visible all over them. "Keep squeezing me like that, mmgh. F-Feels good. So good." He thrusted even harder then, his breath flying out of him along with it as the wet slap of skin on skin emulated throughout the room.
His muscles tensed and his balls felt sorely heavy with each time they came plapping down against your sweat-slicked skin. The lanterns began to flicker again, brighter this time around as they cast shadows around the bedroom.
Then he leaned all the way down to smush his soft lips into yours, capturing your breath with in a messy kiss. His tongue came out to slide against yours as his firm body rocked into yours, the bed struggling to remain in place with his every move.
When his mouth left yours, he was dazed. This should've been the second signal for you. Especially as he let out a loud groan and went whispering, "Gonna breed this pretty cunt-," Instantly catching himself after and letting those soft grey eyes of his go all the more doe-like on you, "Shit... can I say that? I-Is that okay? Do you like it when I talk to you like tht?"
His hips picked up in pace, jaw going stiff as the balmy head of his cock smudged all sloppily against your cervix. Aang glanced down to see how he was disappearing into you, gasping at the obscene sight below him and then returning his eyes to yours.
"Tell me, baby. Please, talk to me. Tell me how you want me-, how you need me. I just wanna-, ohfuck—" Mid-sentence, his steady thrusts seem to derail and your cunt soaks around him to leave a sheeny layer of aroused slick all over his dick.
You're sucking him in deeper than he expected you to, and it catches him absolutely off guard. Which you notice rather quickly, batting your fucked-out eyes up at him, "Aang? Are you okay?"
"Yeah-, yes.. You just keep—" He hunches over against you—body going taut and lean muscles constricting against one another. "You keep squeezing me like that."
Begining to like seeing him struggle, "Squeezing like what?" you asked in sync with your walls clenching around the deft base of his cock.
Air puffs right out of him as if he'd been choked and his body shudders with something powerful coursing through him. You only catch it for a split second the first time it happens—a brief flash over both his markings and his eyes as his next array of groaning stammers out of him.
Following this is the flash of something wild in his eyes as they broaden, pupils dialating a fraction. Aang's head tips to the side and the plump crown of his cock slavers itself alllll around your insides, the puffy lips of your cunt left to quiver around him.
"You're so pretty-," Your loving boyfriend chuffs out, unknowingly thrusting into you harder via a burst of controlled air slapping against his backside. "H-Have I told you that? Hm?" He's asking as if he wasn't literally air bending himself into fucking you harder.
Your head just barely manages a nod, tears coating your lash line, "Nngh-, yes, Aang."
"Say it back to me then," Aang encourages. In between his breathy words, a brush of air is felt slithering against your cunt. It was almost as if his ability to seamlessly multitask was showcasing the best of his abilities via stimulating you everywhere. "Tell me how pretty my girl is, yeah?"
The sensation brings a stutter to your speech, "A-Aang, I can’t," you cry out, nails lightly scraping at his back.
He smiles halfway before his thrusting grows erratic and his jaw slacks some, "Oh. You're gushing-, shit."
You feel the way his tip pulsates inside you, his hips struggling to pull himself back for a moment long enough to give his cock a second to breathe—not that he much cared to do so anyway.
"So wet. Wanna see you cum-, wanna feel it." Aang husks, "Can you do that? Cum for me?"
"Mhmm," You nod weakly at first but within the next few seconds, as something begins to rumble distantly, you start to second guess your agreement. Mouth falling agape, “Wait, s’too much-,” you try to warn him.
He’s lost though—lost in the feel of your greedy insides begging his dick to spill enough seed into you to repopulate a nation or two at least. Aang’s unconscious manipulation of air only gets worse too, he goes from using his bending to fuck himself deeper to using it to sprawl your puffy pussy lips ‘n legs apart even wider.
You’re a stretched out mess in mere seconds, gasping his name and crying out in pleasure as your back begins arch. Then he’s chuckling all of a sudden and you swear for a moment he’s not even the same man you knew him to be.
Aang’s head cocks back some and his eyes roll back, “You can take it,” he grunts like he knows his words to be true and no argument could convince him otherwise. “You always do. Mmgh-,” He bites his lip for a second before looking down at you once more. “Can’t you feel that? The air helpin’ me fill you up? It’s-, hah.. It’s a little something I’ve been practicing.”
You pout at first, “Aang, I don’t know if-, mmgnh! Y-Your markings!”
The room illuminates with colors of spiritual blue before he notices what you’re talking about.
“What about them?” Aang asks cluelessly, his voice having changed due to the height of pleasure and energy surging through him.
Sweat drips down his body but it doesn’t even manage to touch you or the bed because he’s bending those droplets just as he was the air—completely losing himself in the feel of you and bending all sorts of shit because of it.
“They’re glowing,” You gasp.
Then his cock buries itself all the way in, every stiff inch clamped by your sappy insides, and his body comes to a sharp stop.
You knew there were… concerns when it came to having sex with your boyfriend who just so happens to be the avatar. But, no one told you he’d enter the avatar state just from cumming too hard!!
It’s while creamy gushes of cum are flooding into your poor cunt that his body is shuddering and he’s literally entering a new state of pleasure. He could hardly manage a word out or even move, the state had taken him over entirely.
You’d be lying if you said you weren’t a little worried for him because of it, but honestly you were a tad bit distracted by how fucking hot it was.
You shouldn’t let this go to your head, really.
But who else can say their pussy sent their boyfriend into the avatar state?
That’s something to brag about!
(not proofread) banner from “Welcome to The Muscle Salon!” || tags:
☽ ⋆ ⋅ it’s not zuko’s fault his wife can’t keep her hands off him.
☼ cw ; fem! reader, fire lord zuko, being late to a meeting because you can’t stop riding zuko, mentions of all the babies you guys have, sokka being sokka. the gaang’s all here (after the sex).
☽ ⋆ ⋅ m.list
“Come on Zuko— one more time? Please?” You’re panting, naked, hands braced on Zuko’s sweaty chest as you grind back and forth in his lap.
His breath hitches from the sheets, squeezing your hips. “Seriously? I’m already late. How does it— fuck. Stop that!” Zuko frowns and pinches your ass when you tighten around his cock on purpose.
“How does it look if the Fire Lord can’t stop fucking his wife long enough to attend a simple meeting with the Avatar?” He continues.
Zuko is still half hard inside your pussy, cum trailing down his shaft— filling out thick and hot by the second.
“Then why are you getting hard again?” You tease, dipping down to suck on his throat.
“That— that’s unfair,” he moans. You draw back to look at his face, and his cheeks are flushed such a similar color to his scar it almost blends together entirely.
“And if you really thought this meeting with Aang was important you wouldn’t still be in bed with me.” You place your palm over Zuko’s mouth, grinning at the way his eyes go wide and his cock twitches.
“Now shut up and let me ride my husband one more time.”
When you walk into the fire temple chambers where the meeting is taking place, the entire group is there.
Aang and Katara share a look, laughing at the picture you and Zuko make. Hair mussed and clothes ruffled, a hickey high on Zuko’s throat.
Sokka looks thoroughly annoyed and throws his hands up in exasperation.
“Seriously dude?!” He shouts, jumping from his chair and jabbing a finger at the poorly hidden hickey. “This is why the fire temple is crawling with your offspring!”
Toph snickers, and Zuko doesn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed.
forgive me i wrote this in thirty minutes immediately after i watched the movie.
# ﹙ sweet aang with a mess inside his pants. ﹚ ʚ 𝗌𝗎𝖻!𝖺𝖺𝗇𝗀 ɞ
Nails crawl down your back under the shirt; despite being so immersed in the delight of lust and desire, Aang manages not to do it so hard, but still enough to mark you with soft pink lines. He doesn’t want to hurt you; he really doesn’t, but fuck, it feels too good. You make him feel so loved and desired to the point of not believing that he deserves it.
That he deserves you.
Having you like this, on top between his legs, dominating him in a way that makes him wet his pants like a damn filthy pervert who doesn’t know how to control his hormones every time you touch him, kiss him or just say “I love you” against his skin. You’re so much for him. So kind, so sweet, god, he loves you.
And, above everything, he loves to be yours.
Fingers tangled in your hair while he makes sure to give you enough space between his neck and collarbone, where your skillful lips leave a sloppy reddish trail. He whines in your ear, feeling you play with his tip through the soaked fabric; hips pushing up, desperately trying to rub even more against the palm of your hand as he—gently—pulls the hair already wrapped in his fingers. He’s getting loud, really loud and he knows it by the way his shameful sounds bounce off the walls until they reach his ears. Pitchy, ascending more higher when your hand starts to move faster.
“I thought you were already a big boy who knew how to control himself.” It’s pathetic how much effect that teasing tone in your whisper has on him; tickling in his stomach and twitching in his needy dick that only gets worse when he hears you snort. Oh, you feel it.
“I am, I am,” For his misfortune you return back to the slowness, gently cupping the sticky silhouette in his crotch. “Mmm’sorryy, I’m trying, l’mmph really trying.”
This is the exact moment when you most want to keep his angelic sounds inside your ears.
He breaks into a big, loud gasp when you—abruptly—squeeze the pre-cum out of him. Nails burying strangely pleasant in your skin. Your poor boy is shaking, why are you being so mean to him? He has always been such a good boy to you, right?, this is unfair. He hasn’t even touched you back because he knows he must behave and wait for your permission.
This is getting him desperate, he craves to feel you with no clothes involved.
By now his pretty mouth is drooling, and you can’t help but take the time to run your thumb over the shiny lower lip, memorizing that lustful expression deep in your mind. “I wish you could see this, the strong, powerful Avatar reduced to nothing more than a trembling mess in my bed, what a view, ah?”
There’s not even a little shyness behind the whimper he just grant to you. Keep talking to him like that if you want him to cum in five.
“i can’t, i want—i need,”
“What is it?”
“C-Can you touch me—properly, please, please?”
How can you say no? Like I said, Aang’s been such a good boy for you. Worthy of a prize.
Most importantly, there was no way to regret seeing those puppy eyes get excited when you finally yanked off his pants.
notes; thinking about sub aang makes me crazyyy, i NEED to get that man pregnant or i’ll die, seriously. anyway, i made this short writing to test the waters on how you guys feel about this, please let me see what you think!! also let me know if you want more about this and if with any other character;-)
P.S. send me your good energy so i can finish an Aang fanfic that i’ve been working on since May, damn. i also need to organize my blog properly after disappearing for so long, uuuggghh. SORRY FOR THIS BIG ASS NOTE.
summary: you get jealous over a joke toph makes about katara and aang bringing back the air nation, so he fucks your worries right off your head.
wc: 4.3k
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
It was all because of a stupid joke Toph made at dinner; one that everyone took lightly but you.
“So since Aang’s still alive..” she started with a dirty snicker at the man’s absence, quite tipsy, playfully nudging Katara’s side. “That means the Airbenders could be brought back. Think you and him could repopulate the Air nation, Sugar Queen? Have little Airbender babies filling up the temples?”
“What the hell— No!” Katara shoves her off, flustered and embarrassed, groaning in defeat at the others’ laughs.
Zuko offers her a timid smile, his words a little slurred from the drinking. “But it’s true, no? That would be a very heroic act, Katara.”
“Drop it, you guysss..” she sighs, downing one more shot, Toph’s noisy cackling mingling with Sokka’s until they’re interrupted by their synchronized hiccuping, which only causes them to laugh even louder.
Your grip tightens around your glass. You were glad nobody was looking at you; you wouldn’t know how to justify the glare you were throwing their way.
Images of Aang and Katara naked and tangled under the sheets suddenly plagued your mind, and you couldn’t tell if they were the cause of your headache or if that was the work of your sixth drink.
You huff, squeezing your eyes shut and shaking the thoughts off. This was ridiculous.
You push yourself up from the floor, and that piques Katara’s attention. She looks up at you, a little worried. “Leaving already? Is everything okay, sweetie?”
A twinge of guilt tugs at your heartstrings at the genuine worry in her voice. You give her a small nod, and your best attempt at a smile, “Just had too much to drink, don’t worry. I’ll go upstairs, to check on Aang.”
“Gooood,” Toph drawls through a fit of giggles, raising her hand to give you a thumbs up while Sokka refills her mug. “Tell him that Katara’s gonna bring back the Air nation while you’re at it. Gonna give him loooots of babies. Pregnant Katara, pregnant with little Airbenders. Buuunch of ‘em.”
Your lips purse tightly, and as much as you wanted to, you refrain from throwing your glass at her face. “.. Alright. Goodbye.”
You walk off, Katara’s exasperated denials and Toph’s increasingly dirty jokes fading into a dull noise as you storm up the stairs.
You don’t even know why this was upsetting you so badly. Sure, you had a little crush on Aang but.. it’s not like he was yours. He probably would never be.
You weren’t even a bender; so why in the world would he ever pick you over Katara?
Everyone in the group pictured them together for good reason; she was the perfect match for him. And you did love them both a lot as your dear friends.. so why were you this worked up?
Tears prick at your eyes when you stand in front of Aang’s door. You quickly wipe them off with the back of your hand, bewildered at the fact that you were actually crying over this.
You sigh. You shouldn’t have had so much to drink, this was all the alcohol.
After a few more minutes of mulling over your words and composing yourself, you knock on the door softly. Three knocks.
“Come in!” His voice, breezy like always but a little weighed down by the exhaustion of night work, shoots right through your chest like an arrow. You suck in a sharp breath, then slowly slide the door open.
“Ohh, thank Spirits you’re here.” He practically whines as he tips his head back against his chair, limp as a ragdoll. “Dumb Avatar work won’t end, I swear I thought I was about to die from boredom. You’re my savior.”
You force a small smile and walk over to his desk, setting down your glass with a bit of sake left, that he wastes no time in stealing and chugging down in a second.
He exhales with a wide grin, very pleased, melting back against his chair. “Really, really my savior.”
You stare at him silently. Your gaze lingers on the pretty arch of his eyebrows, the light blush already tinting his cheeks because he had the liquor tolerance of a two year old, the adorable twinkle in those tired, happy doe eyes..
You look further down, noting the squeeze of his too-big back against the borrowed chair, and the way his legs twisted uncomfortably to fit under the somehow small-for-him desk.
Downsides of a bigger build, huh. Your mouth dries up a little.
It physically hurt that you couldn’t have him.
His puzzled, sad frown snaps you out of your haze. “You’re not even listening to me.. am I boring you?”
“Oh, no, no, not at all. I’m sorry.” You wave your hands wildly, embarrassed and grateful that he seemingly didn’t pick up on your inappropriate leering. “I just.. just..”
The more you look into his eyes, the heavier your heart feels.
Your friends’ words keep ringing in the back of your head, the filthy images of him and Katara together in different positions refusing to leave your tipsy mind.
Spirits, you felt like you could cry again. Damn you, inhibition-lowering alcohol. And damn you, Toph.
Once again, you’re pulled out of your thoughts by him. His large hand wraps around yours, his features scrunched in worry at the sight of your teary eyes. “Are you okay, sweetheart? Tell me what’s wrong.”
Now was not the time for his stupid nicknames. This was so unfair to your poor heart.
“I am. It’s just.. this dumb thing that happened earlier.” You look down at your hand in his, your eyes welling up much to your embarrassment and dismay.
His fingers gently curl around yours, urging you to look at him. “What dumb thing? Please tell me.”
‘No.’ You wanted to say. ‘It concerns you, so how could I tell you?’ You tell yourself.
Staying silent or lying was the smart idea.
..
Maybe you would’ve been smarter sober.
With the alcohol in your system, and those beautiful eyes boring into yours so intimately in the dark of the night, the moonlight reflecting in his pupils.. you don’t feel the words spill out of your lips until you hear them yourself.
“It’s nothing. Just a joke Toph made,” with each syllable that left your mouth, your brain desperately tried to hit the brakes and shut you up, regret already pooling in your gut as you helplessly watched yourself commit the stupidest mistake of your life. “About.. you and Katara. Talked about you two.. uhm.. repopulating the Air nation, or whatever. Like.. Airbenders aren’t totally extinct since you.. you’re still here. You could, y’know, make more—”
“I-I get the gist,” he interjects, blushing while his grip tightens around your hand. He sighs lowly and shakes the thought off. “Of course it’s Toph. But.. I’m still lost.”
He tilts his head, blinking up at you so sweetly you almost melt. “I think I get the joke. Dirty, sure. But I’m not sure why it’s sad?”
“Sad?” You answer back, just as puzzled. “It’s not sad, though?”
He nods, both of you like lost puppies. “I know. So why is it making you cry?”
Fuck.
Your addled brain racks itself to come up with a reason fast enough, but oh, who were you kidding?
“It’s just..” you look down at the empty glass, wishing it was full so you could down it and hopefully choke on it. “..I don’t know.”
Could you have picked a worse answer? Hard to tell.
A long silence settles between you two, and you can feel his heavy, curious gaze on you without even needing to look at him. You regret doing so, because with the way his eyes suspiciously narrow, his oblivious mind exhausting the possible explanations for your state, you can see him work closer up to the conclusion.
“Welp,” you force an awkward chuckle, patting his hand before sliding yours off his grasp and taking a few steps back, hoping to make it out of here before he figures it out. “I’m sorry to bother you, Aang. It’s nothing really, I think it’s just the drinks getting to me. You know how they always make me soo emotional. Anyway, I just wanted to check up on you, so I’ll get going now.”
You turn around and pick up your pace, but before your fingers find the knob, a gust of wind pushes the door just right out of your reach.
“Wait.” His voice sends a shiver up your spine, cold sweat suddenly rolling off your temples. “Are you..?”
He trails off again, and your limbs grow shakier. This was such a dumb idea, why did you even have to go up to his office? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
You take a deep breath and take one more step to the door, but this time it’s slammed shut with a sharper gust.
“Were you..” You can hear the scraping of his chair as he stands up, your heart sinking down to your ass. “.. Jealous?”
And, unfortunately, there it was.
Even then, knowing Aang, you could’ve still flipped it around. Laughed and played it off. Told him he was wrong. He would’ve believed you.
But, unable to even look up from the door knob, the dumbest answer rolls out of your heavy tongue, a tipsy lightheadedness washing over you for a second. “.. Yes.”
At this point, you didn’t even care anymore. It couldn’t possibly get any worse than this. Maybe now he could laugh at how weird you were being and send you off, finally putting off the burning flames in your chest.
You wait for the longest time, neither of you moving, and right when you expect him to burst out giggling, a firm command escapes his lips instead. “Turn around.”
You blink, dazed.
You slowly turn around, and your breath hitches at the sight before you. Aang standing with his palms flat against the desk, his chest silently heaving, wisps of steam slipping out of his parted lips, more redness across his cheeks, broad and bulky and scary with his no longer sparkling eyes.
There was only what you could describe as heat in them. Not from anger, no, but something awfully akin to lust that had a foreign heat pooling deep in your lower tummy.
Was the alcohol making you see things? Was this just wishful thinking?
“Come here,” he orders again, but it’s shaky this time. Your feet comply before you can process it, and you feel your guts twisting with dread and hopeful anticipation.
Spirits, did you make him uncomfortable? You’d never seen him like this before.
When you finally stand before him, only the desk separating you, your fingers curl around your skirt in guilt. “Aang, I’m so sorry. You already have enough on your plate, I shouldn’t have said anything— Mmf!!”
You’re cut off with a rough kiss, sudden and heated from the get-go, big hands cupping your cheeks as his lips smush against yours in a sloppy mess. You want to make sense of it, but it’s hard to care when your brain’s this fuzzy and you’re living out one of your nightly fantasies.
Neither of you want to stop, breathlessly lapping at each other’s warm tongues and moaning at the unfamiliar feel, swapping sweet sake-flavored saliva.
He reluctantly breaks it with a wet pop, gazing down at you so desperately it had you squeezing your thighs together.
“Don’t move.” Aang whispers, trailing around the table to stand behind you, the order nailing your feet down to the floor. A soft gasp slips from your kiss-bitten lips when his hands tentatively rest on your hips, his breath hot against your ear as his buff body presses against your back. “Is this what you wanted?”
With his touch slowly travelling down to your thighs, all words die out on the tip of your tongue and you can only nod, swallowing thickly.
“You were jealous.” He states again, his voice low and gravelly, like the fact wasn’t embarrassing enough being said the one time. “You’d rather Toph made that joke about you, correct?”
You would’ve answered that, if something huge didn’t poke you in the ass the next second.
Heavens, what the hell was— Oh.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Aang murmurs into your ear, giving your thighs reassuring rubs as he grows unbearably hard against your backside. “I don’t want to.. repopulate the Air nation with Katara, if that’s any consolation. I don’t.”
The words do soothe you a little, but the dirty images are burnt into the back of your eyelids, looping in your mind like a cruel parade, making you shudder against him. “Thank you. I just.. I keep imagining it, and it kills me. Just imagining you on top of her and fucking her— Ah!”
You squeal, startled, when you’re swiftly spun around with not so breezy hands, facing his towering figure with a lick of your bottom lip.
His hands hook around the hem, sliding his shirt off to reveal his muscular frame in all its glory, your gaze sliding down the arrow tattoos, but you’re not given much time before the same hands slide down to the back of your thighs to lift you up on the desk.
He sweeps off the paperwork, crowded between your legs, and you can’t help but moan at how much your thighs have to spread just to wrap around his waist.
So big. In every sense of the word.
“This— Is this what you imagine?” The question’s breathless, lowering himself to look at you and you throb at the eye contact. So does he, judging from the twitching you feel against your inner thigh.
You let out a quivery sigh, your arms wrapping around his broad shoulders while he leans even closer, his steamy breath mingling with yours. “..Kind of..”
He nods at that, glances around hesitantly, then decides to push you flat down on the desk. It’s firm but not rough, your head landing softly on the hardwood thanks to an air cushion he swirled up. “How about this?”
You’re about to reply with a “maybe” when wild fingers swiftly fumble with his belt, lowering his pants enough for him to spring up— WOAH!
Your face is set ablaze, quickly looking away, eyes blown wide open in a mix of shock, dread, and helpless arousal.
His hands find your hips once more, tugging your skirt up to reveal your plush thighs and a patch of your lacies that has him choking on a gasp.
He grabs your jaw, turning your head back to face him, desire and uncertainty swimming in his pretty brown eyes. “Are you.. sure about this? There’s no going back.”
“Please,” it slips out of you with a needy gasp, your legs wrapping around his waist while your hands roam over his wide shoulders. “Yes.”
With the blood rushing in your ears, you can’t hear his whispered word, but from the way his face scrunches up, you assume it was a curse.
Your skirt is fully ridden up with a gust of wind, one that (unintentionally or not) flicks up against your clothed folds and has you shivering in his grasp.
Thick fingers tug the delicate fabric to the side, and he moans in awe at the sight of your drooling slit, already so ready for him.
“So wet,” he comments as he admires the slick coating your glistening cunt, not ripping his eyes off it like it was a piece of art. The prolonged staring makes you self-conscious and embarrassed, but when your thighs shift just a little bit to hide yourself, firm hands keep them separated and he looks up at you, mildly offended. “No, don’t hide from me. You asked for this.”
“Well, I didn’t think your staring was on the menu,” you sputter out, flushed.
“I’m sorry, she’s just so beautiful.” He sighs softly, and your breath is knocked out of your lungs when he starts tracing your folds. “I can’t believe you’re already this wet. You wanted me this badly?”
His questions are genuine, but they only increase your shame. Aang senses that, and so decides to finally give you a taste of what you want.
“Fuck—!” Your back archs off the desk with a yelp, two of his abnormally big digits prodding at your sopping wet hole. It takes some time, but when they finally slip inside you, your pussy greedily sucks them in, earning a pleased grunt from him. “Good girl. Gripping me so nicely.”
It feels illegal to even hear such words from him outside the fake scenarios you touched yourself to at night. More desperate mewls are coaxed out of you when he starts scissoring you open, the pads of his fingertips pressing skillfully against your spongy spot and curling upwards.
“Need to get you ready for me,” he breathes out, stretching you out with a third finger that has you ferally clawing at his back. “So you can take me.”
Steam is wafting off him as he pounds his fingers in and out of your tight walls, unable to look away from your fluttering cunt. His calloused thumb comes to swipe over your perked up clit, a wail ripping through your throat. The sound has him lifting his eyes to check on you, and the sight of tears filling the rim of your eyes, your lips contorted into a quivering pout, your hair pooling so prettily around your head, sends a hot jolt of arousal down to his cock.
“Spirits, you—you’re so pretty.” He babbles dazedly, dragging another scream out of you with a thrust of his fingers. “Pretty, pretty girl. I need you now.”
With a few more rubs to your puffy clit, he suddenly pulls away, your arms tightening around him with a pitiful cry.
“No no, don’t cry, please.” Aang wipes the tears off your eyes, stealing a warm kiss from your puckered lips. “I’ll take care of you now baby, I promise.”
His entire body burned hot with his firebending, but especially his hands; scalding as they slid up the back of your thighs to push your legs up against your chest in a mating press.
But even his hot touch paled in comparison to the heat between your thighs.
He exhales through his nose, one of his hands ditching you to wrap around his girthy cock, lazily fisting himself as the tip flushed an angrier red, veins forking up the length.
You gasp when he lines himself up, the leaking tip gliding over your slit like he owned it, and your eyes roll back at its pure thickness.
You didn’t even know if you could take him.
He lowers himself over you, his bare chest pressed flush against yours as he litters your neck with warm open-mouthed kisses. “Ready for me?”
He takes your pathetic whimper as a “yes”, swallowing it with his tongue while he slowly pushes in.
His pre-cum mixes with your slick in filthy squelches, and you both moan loudly when he finally pushes through the tight ring of muscle, plunging into your velvety walls.
You’d think it’d be easier with him prepping you with three of his fingers, but the big stretch was still scream-worthy.
“I—I can’t,” he whines against your lips after some minutes pass by, frowning down at you so sweetly. “I really want to be gentle and good to you, b-but it’s so hard. With how you feel around me, I just wanna— wanna— ugh, lose control. You— feel so good..”
His words have your organs collapsing against each other, your cunt fluttering around him with arousal at the thought of rough sex with the sweet, tender Avatar before you.
How could you resist such a nasty demand made with the most adorable look?
“Lose it.” You whisper into his mouth, feeling his entire back tense up under your hands. You pull him in for a brief kiss, “I want you to lose it.”
“Fuck,” he hisses, your eyes widening at the flickering of his tattoos. “D—Don’t say that.”
His slow thrusts grow faster and rougher, each inch splitting you further and completely numbing your tipsy mind, broken moans ripping through your hoarse throat when he bottoms out.
You try to adjust to his size, the lingering pain only increasing your pleasure as he rolls his hips into the flesh of your ass, his grip deadly tight around your folded thighs. “Spirits—”
The desk clatters under you, mewling in tandem while he tries to fight the Avatar state, flashes of blinding white forcing you to shut your eyes but they were just as quickly forced back open at the animal pounding that accompanied them.
Holy mother of God, you could feel him in your womb.
“Is—” He grunts, suddenly ripping your top off with his teeth to bare your chest to his hungry gaze. You’re taken off guard, choking on your startled yelp when he hikes your hips up to deepen his angle and fuck you harder, his eyes drinking in the bounce of your gorgeous tits. “Is this what you imagined?”
You could hardly tell if it was Aang anymore, tears streaming down your face and hiccuping sobs while his wild thrusts bruised your cervix.
You feel him twitch inside you, his pace stuttering for a second, and that’s when you know he’s close.
He leans down to capture one of your peaked nipples between his teeth, nipping and licking at the sensitive bud as he reveled in your whiny cries. His svelte fingers take care of the neglected one, twisting and rolling it while his tongue flicked harshly against your left.
When his lips close on it in a sucking motion, your mind goes blank and your eyes cross, drool leaking out of your mouth when you open it to beg for release.
With your pleading and the way your cunt lovingly squeezes around his throbbing dick, he completely loses it and brutally picks up the pace.
“Gonna.. gonna cum,” he slurs, latching off your chest to gaze down at your wrecked face. “Pump you full of me. That’s what you want, right?”
He takes your loud moan to his words as approval, drunk on your noises as he fucks you with the stamina that could only belong to the Avatar.
“Fuck, need— need to breed you.” He turns into an incoherent mess, each thrust fucking your earlier scenarios right out of your head, Katara’s image gradually being replaced by yours. Your nails draw blood, scratching down his muscular back while he gets off to the thought of knocking you up, his fingers sliding down to rub fast circles on your clit. “My—my sweet girl, gonna give me lots of little Airbenders. You want that, don’t you? Stuffed full of my cum, bearing my children. You’ll make me a daddy.”
If his cock destroying your cervix wasn’t enough to make you cum, his words definitely did it.
Your orgasm crashes over you, your toes curling in the air, gushing all over him with a broken cry and so does he, the feel of your walls clamping down on him so tightly tipping him over the edge as hot ropes of thick cum paint your insides white.
It’s so warm — and so much — you almost cum again from the sheer sensation.
“Gonna get you pregnant,” he breathlessly pants, angling your hips up for none of his cum to slip out of you. Your pussy spasms around him, thoroughly milking him dry and you don’t know if it’s just the tipsiness, but you could swear you felt all his warm seed seep through your cervix and fill up your womb.
You’re both drenched in sweat, fighting for air. He gives you a few more thrusts for good measure, draining himself out entirely, eliciting an overstimulated mewl from you, before reluctantly pulling out of what he would later consider his home.
Dazed, he watches your swollen folds clench around nothing, and when he sees some of his cum dribble out of them, he tuts and fingers it back inside you. He does this for the next minutes, making sure you’ve taken all of him, appreciating your needy squirms and whimpers each time.
When he’s satisfied with himself, he exhales deeply, all his earlier savageness gone for an affectionate look in his eyes as he gazes down at you. He gives you a fond smile, pressing his large palm flat against where your womb is. “You’ll grow me some Airbenders in here, won’t you? Birth me back my nation?”
Too fucked out to answer, you nod weakly, limp in his grasp. He leans down to kiss you tenderly, slow and warm and wet. “I can’t wait. In some months, everyone will know what happened here. They’ll know who you belong to, who you craved tonight. You’ll be all big and swollen with my babies.”
The thought has you furiously blushing, your arms wrapping tighter around his shoulders. “W-Well.. it’s still too early to know if I’ll be preg—”
“Oh you will be.” He answers with a cheeky grin, patting your belly again. “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
You blink at him, incredulous, a small smile tugging at your lips too. “But that’s not how it works. There’s no guarantee that I’m pregnant, even if you know what you’re doing.”
At that, he groans, tucking his face into the crook of your neck while his heavy body rests over yours. “But I’m the Avatar. My stuff’s gotta be special. I’m sure it worked, you’re definitely knocked up.”
You return his tired hug, letting out a soft exasperated sigh. “.. Sure, Aang.”
Meanwhile, everyone downstairs remained blissfully ignorant of what the hell happened a floor above them, all busy with their drinks and tipsy banter.
All, except for a very drunk earthbender that heard everything through the walls. Who was thankfully way too drunk to properly tell the others, only shouting garbled congratulations to the ceiling that nobody bothered to understand. “Niiiice. Good going, Twinkle toes. You lucky dog.”
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
masterlist
* i’d be popping out babies left and right with this yummy bald man.. if you see any mistakes leave me alone i hate proofreading.
cw: 18+ | fem!Reader; just trust me on this, okay?
The room is illuminated in a sensual deep red glow which could suggest that it's warm, but it really isn't—not in the predicament Simon is finding himself to be in on this merry evening.
Trapped and captured.
Brought to an unknown location where all communication with his teammates has been cut off. They don't know where he has been dragged off to.
He's alone—which shouldn't bother him as much as it does.
Stripped naked and tied to an old chair that creaks whenever he shifts or flexes his muscles against the ropes. They pinch into his flushed skin, cutting off circulation until he forces himself to relax and keep a cool head.
This isn't something he's been through before, though he's had some training—all theory.
His skin pebbles with goosebumps, scars prickling, and hairs at the back of his neck bristling under his balaclava as a cool breeze sweeps into the room through the cracked window.
Why they decided to leave his mask on, he doesn’t know. Doesn't understand, but doesn't dare to question it, either.
He flexes his muscles again, but they did an amazing job tying him up; hands behind his back and locked to the chair. The black rope criss crosses around his torso in a strange work of art, keeps his thighs apart, calves and feet bound to the legs of the chair. His cock jumps lightly as he tenses, slowly chubs up and swells at the unfamiliar exposure while adrenaline courses through his veins.
There is no time for him to let his thoughts wander or to come up with a quick escape plan, because his ears perk up as the door opens and closes behind him—and suddenly, there is another presence in the room with him.
He'll have to play the long game. Stay alive until his team can get to him. It's not like he hasn't done it before—under much different circumstances.
The clicking of heels on hardwood floor cuts through the eerie silence and Simon grits his teeth as his body begins to react involuntarily.
His nipples peak as the rope keeps pressing and brushing over the sensitive areas, his chest flushes deeper, warmth spreading up and under his mask while his heavy prick starts defying gravity as it hardens to full mast until it bobs against the pudge of his lower tummy.
The sudden touch of soft fingertips and blunt nails trailing along the curve of his left shoulder makes him flinch. The chair creaks with the movement, and you laugh quietly, finally appearing in his line of sight as you saunter around the chair.
"Jumpy, are we?" you chuckle again, crossing your arms in front of your bosom as you stand in front of him—wearing a lacey red set of lingerie with a matching garter belt and stockings that accentuate your curves perfectly.
A mouthwatering picture of sin and temptation.
Simon swallows thickly, hands clenching and unclenching behind him as he keeps his mouth shut. Refusing to give you any ammo to work with.
You tut at his defiance as he keeps glaring up at you with those incredibly dark eyes, unblinking like some freaky mannequin.
"They didn't take off your mask," you remark, shifting on your feet. His eyes flicker down, noticing the movement. Those shoes certainly look uncomfortable, like you're not used to wearing them.
"Why?" you ask coolly, and his eyes flicker up again before he shrugs as best as he can, scrunching his nose as the rope keeps cutting into his flesh.
You take a step forward, and his nostrils flare under his mask, sniffing your scent through the mask. The perfume you wear is surprisingly pleasant, definitely expensive. His gaze lingers on your tits, pushed up all enticingly with your arms crossed.
Supple and squishy. At this distance, he could easily snatch you up, break your neck, pull you into his lap, onto his cock—if his hands were free. His heart thuds harder as he shakes those thoughts off.
"Are you that ugly?" you taunt, eyes sparkling while you hook your right index finger under the hem. His pulse throbs in his neck.
"Take it off an' find out yerself, sweet'art."
"Oh, you don't mind?" He stays silent.
Your brows furrow, red painted lips pursing at his lack of protest before you start dragging the black cloth upwards and over his head.
His head tilts back a little, his eyes narrow at you as his face is exposed so easily.
Your eyes flicker as you allow yourself to drink in the sight of him for a moment.
Pale cheeks flushed and dusted with a five o'clock shadow. Faded scars splitting his lip and eyebrow, running down the side of his temple, another one at his chin. Roman nose crooked from being broken and not tended to properly. Short, dark-blonde hair tousled from the mask.
"Hmpf," you hum, licking your lips. "Handsome."
Simon snorts dryly, but his cock twitches, betraying his arousal.
"Gonna suck my fuckin' cock now or wha'?" he asks crudely, trying to throw you off your game—and it works. "Ain't gonna suck itself, birdie."
Your smug expression falters momentarily, but then your nails dig into his flesh as you swiftly grab his jaw, eliciting a surprised grunt from him.
"Oh, you'd like that, huh?" you sneer, "Didn't know Simon fucking Riley is such a bloody slag."
His eyes narrow to slits, jaw unclenching as your fingers squeeze his cheeks, digging into the muscles borderline painfully.
"Are you gonna be difficult," you purr sensually, leaning in until you're dangerously close, "or are you gonna be a good boy and tell me what I need to know?"
There's another tense pause, then:
"I could'a broken yer nose right now but didn't, love," he deadpans as your grip loosens some. "Tha's me playin' along." He clicks his tongue, pokes it into his stinging cheeks as your hand drops eventually, pouty lips pulling into a sly smile. "Olright?"
Simon feels strangely in charge in this moment, even if he's the one in the hands of the enemy and tied to a chair, until you reach down to flick the leaking slit of his ruddy tip.
He flinches, unable to jerk away. His cock jumps obscenely, a fat drop of pre drips into the floor.
"Christ," he hisses through clenched teeth, glaring up at you while his cockhead stings. "Bloody minx."
"Not that cocky anymore, huh?" You're still taunting and mocking him, even as you brace your hands on his meaty thighs while you sink down to your knees between his legs.
"In twenty minutes, you'll be telling me all I need to know, begging me to stop—"
"Twenty minutes?" he repeats, sounding unimpressed. "My wife needs less."
You stop, glaring up at him, clearly holding back some words on the tip of your tongue while Simon suppresses a grin, though the muscle in his cheek ticks suspiciously.
"Wife?" You pinch his right inner thigh, tugging at his leg hair, and his throbbing cock twitches again while his head lolls back with an exasperated huff, bulky chest heaving while the rope squeezes his muscles once more.
"A bloke like you has a wife?"
He groans as your hand finally wraps around his shaft, thumb rubbing along his frenulum teasingly, right under his sensitive tip.
"Aye," Simon grunts, breathing shallowly, "a hot one. Fuckin' gorgeous."
Your grip on his shaft tightens as you start to pump him and his toes curl, hips aching to buck while the restraints keep him seated.
"Fuuuuck, you're a cruel little kitty, huh? Showing off yer claws as if y'know how to use them—"
And just like that, your free hand digs into his inner thigh, nails clawing into pliant muscle before his thighs flex, and you drag them along his skin. Simon snarls at the sting, but then you spit on his cock and pump him faster from base to tip and he chokes on air.
"Awww, what's wrong, hm?" You coo, licking your shiny lips as you watch his reactions with obvious glee and a smirk to match it while stroking his fat prick relentlessly.
Simon trembles in his restraints, slowly but surely losing some feeling in his hands as he keeps his fists balled tightly. His balls throb, drawing up already as the pleasure coils low in his gut, pooling hot and mercilessly at the base of his spine.
As his eyes roll back, he curses internally that he hasn't gotten off in a week.
"Lookit this—the big, bad Ghost all pathetic and falling apart—"
Simon's eyes fly open as he tenses up, staring at the dark ceiling before focusing his gaze back to you between his legs.
"Man United."
You stop immediately, eyes widening as you look up.
His chest heaves slowly as he tries to breathe deeply and rid himself of the fog in his fuzzy brain.
"Man United," Simon repeats roughly, nodding to affirm his words to you.
Letting go of his cock, you start rubbing his thighs soothingly, returning his nod with your own before you rise in your heels.
"Yeah," you agree softly. "Are you okay, baby?"
Simon exhales through his nose; tension slowly melting away as the atmosphere shifts and your whole demeanor softens along with your pretty eyes.
"Yes, 'm fine," he husks, blinking slowly like a content cat and leaning into your touch as you cup his cheek gently.
And suddenly, the strange room becomes your master bedroom again. The dimmed red light comes from by his ordinary bedside table lamp with a red towel draped over it. The scene but something you both have come up with on a whim this Saturday night.
"Do you need a break or—" You leave the question open as you gauge his reaction. "Do you wanna stop? What happened?"
Simon squirms a little, suddenly flustered.
"Don't call me Ghost again, please," he answers reluctantly, though he knows he needs to tell you. "Y'can't call me tha' here, not even as a joke, love. Makes me feel—" His chest heaves with a deep breath like he's bracing himself to talk about his feelings, even though he's become better at it since marrying you.
"Like what?" you ask gently, still caressing his cheek. "Talk to me, baby."
He exhales slowly, holding your gaze.
"Makes me feel weird. Too real. Don't wanna bring that part of me 'ere, okay?"
You nod understandingly, running your fingers through his hair as you take his admission to heart.
"Yeah, okay."
There's a pause, and Simon flashes you a close-lipped smile while his heart flutters, chest tight and full of love. His cock is still uncomfortably hard. He clears his throat.
"Can we skip the roleplay for now?"
You snicker, tugging on the rope at his chest playfully. "Sure. Want me to untie you?"
Simon looks down at himself, wiggles his toes and fingers before glancing up at you once more, shaking his head with a cheeky twinkle in his eyes.
"Can you ride me? I need to feel yer sweet cunt, love."
"That right, huh?" Your eyebrow arches as you enjoy the sight in front of you briefly before your hands slide down to his shoulders. Bracing yourself on his solid frame, you go on to straddle his lap, pinning his steadily weeping cock between your clothed crotch and his lower belly.
"Ngh, fuck," he curses under his breath as his head lolls forward, resting his forehead against yours while you smile at his surrender.
"Now, why don't you tell me about that hot wife of yours again, hm?" you quip as you reach for his cock once more.
It starts—like most things in your relationship—with you doing something absolutely deranged and Simon deciding he's fine with it.
It's July.
Hereford is experiencing what the weatherman keeps calling an unprecedented heatwave and what you keep calling hell.
The flat has no air conditioning because Simon is, at his core, a man who believes suffering builds character and that a desk fan pointed at the bed is a reasonable substitute for modern climate control.
So you've been lying on the kitchen floor in your knickers for the better part of an hour, cheek pressed to the tile, when you hear his key in the lock.
He's come home from the gym. You know this before you see him because you can smell him the second the door opens—that warm, salt-heavy wave of clean sweat and cheap deodorant losing its war and something underneath that's just him, dense and male and so fundamentally Simon that your brain whites out for a second like a computer hitting a critical error.
He rounds the corner and finds you on the floor. Doesn't blink.
"Heatstroke?"
"Almost."
"Drink water."
"No."
He steps over you to get to the fridge, and the smell of him hits you full force.
The cotton of his shirt is damp at the collar and under the arms and clinging to the small of his abnormally broad back, and when he reaches up to grab a glass from the cabinet his shirt rides up and you get a flash of his stomach, the trail of hair below his navel, and the waistband of his shorts sitting low on his hips, and something in your hindbrain just snaps.
You don't make a conscious decision. One moment you're on the floor. The next you're standing behind him with your nose pressed into the space between his shoulder blades, inhaling like you're trying to extract his soul through his t-shirt.
He goes still. Glass in hand. Tap running.
"Whot're y'doin'."
It's not a question. It's a statement—delivered all flat and measured, the voice he uses on comms when someone is doing something tactically stupid and he's deciding whether to intervene or let natural selection handle it.
"You smell good," you mutter into the damp cotton, which is—objectively insane.
He smells like a man who just did over ninety minutes of deadlifts in thirty-degree heat. He smells like exertion and iron and the ghost of this morning's soap buried under hours of sweat. He smells absolutely incredible.
"I smell like a bloody gym bag."
"Yes." You press closer.
And your arms come around his waist and your hands flatten against his stomach, feeling his abs flex, and you drag your nose up the line of his spine to the nape of his neck where his hair is damp and the scent is concentrated, thick and warm and salty, and the sound you make is embarrassing.
It's a sound that belongs in a nature documentary. The sound a wolf makes finding its mate's trail.
Simon turns the tap off. Sets the glass down.
"You're sniffin' me."
"Mm-hm."
"Haven't showered yet."
"I know." You say it like that's the point, because it is, and you feel the exact moment he processes that by the way his stomach tenses under your palms, the slow, deliberate way he turns around and looks down at you.
His pale face is flushed from the heat. Dirty blonde hair pushed back and slick at the temples. There's a bead of sweat tracking down the side of his neck and you want to lick it, and something in your expression must telegraph that thought clearly because his dark eyes go half-lidded and the corner of his mouth twitches, twisted by a scar.
"Filthy girl," he says, low and warm and not remotely disapproving.
You lose your mind a little.
It gets worse from there. Or better. Depends who you ask.
Simon comes home from a five-day exercise on Salisbury Plain—unwashed, kit bag reeking, the smell of him so potent that it practically has its own postcode—and you ambush him in the hallway before he's even got his boots off.
Shoving your face into his neck as he drops the bag before his mammoth hands come up to grip your hips, and the noise he makes is quiet and dark and satisfied, like this is exactly what he expected and he's been thinking about it for five days.
"Missed me, then," he murmurs against the top of your head, and his voice has that edge it gets—the arrogant one, the one that knows precisely what effect he has and has decided to be insufferable about it.
"Take your shirt off," you demand, tugging at the fabric impatiently.
"Haven't even locked the fuckin' door."
"Take your shirt off."
And he takes his shirt off.
And you, you're past the point of pretending this is normal when you press your face into his chest and breathe him in, the dip of his sternum, the hollow of his collarbone, the coarse hair that covers his pecs.
He smells like five days of sweat and gun oil and British weather and the base layer he hasn't changed since Tuesday, and you're making noises against his skin that are genuinely unhinged—little huffs and hums and one actual, literal whimper when you find the crease where his arm meets his torso and the scent is so strong your vision blurs.
His armpit.
You have your nose in his armpit. You are a woman with a degree and a mortgage and you are huffing your boyfriend's unwashed armpit in the hallway of your shared home and making sounds like you've found God.
Simon's hand comes up to cradle the back of your head. Not pulling you away but holding you there.
"That's rank, luv," he says, conversationally. "Haven't washed in days."
You whimper again. He feels it against his skin and his fingers tighten in your hair and his chest expands with a slow, controlled breath that you've learned to identify as Simon Riley exercising enormous restraint.
"You're proper fucked in the head," he tells you, fond as anything, sporting a throbbing erection in his tac pants.
"Your bloody fault."
You drag your mouth across to the other side. Equal opportunity. His skin is salt-warm and slightly tacky and you tongue the hollow of his throat on the way and he makes a sound—a real one, rough and low—and his hips shift forward and you feel exactly how okay he is with all of this pressing hard against your stomach.
The thing about Simon is that he's a hypocrite.
He'll call you unhinged and stand there with that flat, unimpressed expression while you bury your face in his worn hoodie that he deliberately left on the back of the sofa. He'll raise one split eyebrow when you steal his pillow on the nights he's away because it still smells like his shampoo and his skin.
But then you'll catch him.
You'll catch him pressing his nose into your hair when he thinks you're asleep, breathing slow and deep like he's memorising you. You'll catch him picking up the shirt and knickers you wore yesterday and holding them to his face for just a second before tossing it in the wash.
And you'll catch him pulling you onto his lap after his run and settling you so your face tucks against his neck, unprompted, like he's offering himself, and when you latch on and inhale he'll sigh this long, heavy, settled exhale, like a man setting down something he's been carrying for a very long time.
He likes it. He more than likes it.
He loves that you want him like this—graceless and desperate and raw.
Loves that it's not the clean, put-together version of him that gets you going, but the unwashed, sweating, human animal underneath.
He loves it because Simon Riley has spent his entire adult life being a weapon, a ghost, a thing behind a mask, and you're down on your knees in the hallway sniffing him like a deranged bloodhound because he smells like himself and that's enough to make you lose your mind.
He'll never say it. But his hand in your hair says it. The way he tilts his chin up to give you access says it. The way he comes home from a run and finds you on the sofa and stands in front of you, shirt dark with sweat, and waits—just waits expectantly—with that barely-there smirk until you reach for him.
The worst instance—the one that becomes legend, the one that Simon would murder you for if you ever told a living soul—happens on a Saturday afternoon.
He's been out on a long run. It's hot again. He comes through the door in shorts and a vest that's soaked through, and he's flushed and breathing hard, and you're sitting on the kitchen counter eating an apple and you just stop chewing, eyes big. Mid-bite. Like a prey animal that's just spotted a predator.
Your eyes drop from his face to his chest to the dark trail of hair disappearing into the waistband of his running shorts, and then lower, to where the thin material is clinging with sweat and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination, and your brain produces a single, coherent thought:
I need to put my face there.
Simon follows your gaze. Looks down at himself. Looks back at you.
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You didn't have'ta. I can hear ya bloody thinkin'." He grabs a cold water bottle. Takes a long drink. A drop escapes down his jaw and tracks along his throat. "The answer's no. I'm disgustin'."
You put the apple down.
"I will literally get on my knees right now, Si."
He chokes on the water. Actually coughs—Lieutenant Simon Riley, the man who has been waterboarded and didn't flinch—and when he recovers, his eyes are dark and his voice is rougher than it was ten seconds ago.
"You're a fuckin' menace, luv."
"And you fucking love it."
He stares at you. You stare back, unblinking. The kitchen is very quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the sound of your shared dignity circling the drain.
He sets the water bottle down. Leans back against the opposite counter. Spreads his stance—just slightly, just enough—and the look he gives you is the most arrogant, self-satisfied, obscene thing you've ever seen on a human face. The whore.
"Come here, then."
You have never moved faster in your life.
You slide off the counter and cross the kitchen in two steps, and then you're on your knees on the tile in front of him, and he's looking down at you with that heavy-lidded expression that's half disbelief and half want—raw and dark and barely controlled.
"Christ," he mutters, and his hand comes up to cup the side of your face, thumb dragging across your cheekbone. "Fuckin' look at you."
You nuzzle into the front of his shorts before he can say anything else. Press your open, wet mouth against the shape of him through the thin, sweat-damp material, and the sound he makes—low, involuntary, and punched out of his chest—sends a hot pulse of satisfaction straight through you.
He's already half-hard and you can smell him here, concentrated and musky and so overwhelmingly male that your eyes flutter shut and you moan against the fabric like you've been starving for it.
"Fuck." His hand slides into your hair. Not pushing, not yet. Just there. "You're really goin' to—"
You tug his shorts down. He helps, lifts his hips off the counter just enough, and then there's nothing between you and the thick, flushed length of him, and the scent hits you unfiltered. Skin and salt and the dark, heady musk of sweat pooled in the crease of his thick thigh, and you bury your nose there first, dragging your tongue along the join of his hip and his leg, tasting the salt on his skin, lapping it up like it's something precious.
"Jesus." His thigh tenses against your cheek. His fingers tighten in your hair. "That's—You're actually—"
You lick a broad, flat stripe up the underside of his cock, base to tip, and his sentence dies in his throat when you slowly stroke his foreskin back, revealing his glistening tip.
He tastes like sweat and skin and Simon, bitter-salt and warm, and you take the head into your mouth with a groan that vibrates through him and makes his hips jerk forward. You feel the twitch of restraint in his grip, how he stops himself from thrusting, and you reach up and grab his wrist and pull, giving him permission.
He swears. Low and filthy and barely audible.
You take him deeper. Relax your throat and let him slide heavy over your tongue, and you can taste every inch of him. The clean salt of fresh sweat, the musk that clings to the coarse hair at his base when you press your nose into it, the slick of pre-come that you chase with your tongue and swallow without hesitation.
And you're sloppy about it. Graceless. Drooling and gagging and moaning around him like you're the one getting something out of this, and the thing is—you are. Your thighs are pressed together and you're grinding against nothing and you're so wet it's obscene, all from the taste and smell of his unwashed, post-run, sweat-soaked body filling your mouth and bursting on your tastebuds.
"Look at me," he rasps, and when you drag your eyes up the length of his body—his clenched stomach, his heaving chest, the dark flush spreading across his collarbones—his expression nearly undoes you. It's wrecked.
The arrogance is still there but it's cracked open, underlaid with something raw and desperate that Simon Riley does not let anyone see, ever, and his chiseled jaw is tight and his lips are parted and he's watching you with the kind of focus he usually reserves for a scope.
"Fuckin' perfect," he grits out. "Taking me so—fuck—so well, that's it—"
You hollow your cheeks and suck, hard, and his head drops back against the cabinet with a dull thud. His hips stutter forward, once, twice, and you feel the tension coiling in his thighs, the tremor in his hand where it's fisted in your hair, and you pull back just enough to tongue at the slit, taste the fresh salt of him leaking onto your tongue, then swallow him down again as deep as you can take him.
He comes with a groan that sounds like it's ripped out of him—low and broken and long, and his hand holds you steady while his hips pulse forward and you swallow every drop of it, hot and salty on the back of your tongue, and you keep swallowing, keep licking him through it until his thigh is shaking against your cheek and his grip in your hair softens from holding to cradling and the sound he's making is just breath—ragged, shattered breath.
You pull off slowly. Press one last, open-mouthed kiss to the crease of his thigh, tasting the sweat still cooling there. Look up at him.
He looks properly ruined. Chest heaving, eyes half-closed, lips bitten red. And he looks down at you on your knees on his kitchen floor with your swollen mouth and your wild eyes, and the corner of his lips curves into something that's too undone to be a smirk.
"C'mere," he murmurs, and pulls you up into his lap on the floor.
And later—much later, after you've done things on the kitchen floor that would get you both banned from polite society—he's lying on his back on the tile with you draped across his chest, both of you disgusting, and he's running his fingers through your hair with this idle, lazy contentment that he only ever shows when it's just the two of you.
"You're absolutely mental, woman," he deadpans. "You're aware, yeah?"
"You literally invited me."
He clicks his tongue. "Didn't say I was complainin'."
Then his calloused hand drifts down your back, and he pulls you closer. His nose presses into your temple and he inhales slow, deliberate, tasting the smell of your sweat and his sweat and the two of them mingled together—and the rumble in his chest when he exhales is so deep that you practically feel it in your teeth.
"Good girl," he says quietly, into your hair. "Fuckin' feral, but good."
You press your grin into his collarbone, breathe him in, and it smells like home.
You get injected with an unknown toxin and now your loyal teammates are determined to help ease your suffering.
— pairing: Task Force 141 × fem!141!Reader
— cw: 18+ | sex pollen; dubcon/fuck or die; dd:dne; medical & military inaccuracies; pining; hurt/comfort; angst; fluff; cum and orgasms as the antidote; wc: 12k+
author's note: This has been in my drafts for two years 💀 And she would've said yes to all of them.
"We need some answers, Kate. Now." Captain Price's voice booms inside the spacious briefing room.
He's practically pacing in front of the desk like some anxious K-9, arms folded over his plate carrier as he keeps his sharp eyes trained on Laswell and the two scientists sitting behind their laptops, staring at their respective screens.
Meanwhile, the rest of his team is still as geared up as their Captain—all waiting for orders or further instructions, scattered around the room and listening with bated breath while Price grows more agitated with each shaky exhale he can hear coming from you.
You're currently sitting on one of the tables, boot-clad feet dangling off the edge as you stare at the ceiling, right into the fluorescent lights above, ignoring the way your eyes begin to sting from their brightness.
You've been putting on a brave face since getting stabbed with the needle a few hours ago and you've kept the façade up since hopping off the helo back on base, but it's getting harder to mask the panic rising inside you as your body starts to feel funny.
You swipe the back of your gloved hand over your sweaty forehead, catching the cold perspiration on your feverish skin with the rough fabric, and out of your peripherals, you notice the way your teammates' heads snap in your direction—different-coloured pairs of eyes assessing you with worry, concern, and a hint of curiosity.
Soap and Gaz are standing to your left and right respectively, sneaking glances at you whenever you shift on your spot, while the Lieutenant is still as a marble statue a little offside, arms crossed over his bulky tac vest.
Laswell begins to explain calmly, clutching a thick folder to her chest.
"We're still waiting on anything concrete, John, but the research papers your team managed to extract have offered a great insight on that—whatever that bioweapon is."
Bioweapon.
Your eyes widen as you sit up straight, the word making your heart race and your skin crawl with fear. Both Soap and Gaz take a step closer—two strong pairs of arms outstretched and ready to catch you if you faint.
"Easy there, John—" Laswell says firmly, unbothered by his tone as she takes a step towards the captain and gestures at the two scientists watching the scene unfold with wide eyes from behind their laptops.
"They said she won't die. The amount of injection was too low… apparently."
Apparently?!
You inhale sharply and open your mouth to announce your imminent panic, but you're interrupted when one of the scientists speaks up first.
"That is correct, sir. She won't die."
Professor Doctor Boswel, as the name badge on his white lab coat states, chimes in. Price stops pacing at once, though his sharp eyes scream you better start explaining now, or one of you will be made responsible for this.
"Bringing the syringe back to base was the decisive factor. Our team at the lab is still working to decipher and translate the medical reports and research papers your team recovered, but we can confirm that this bioweapon is most likely a toxin."
A low murmur of various curses goes through the briefing room as you try to ignore the odd tingles in your limbs—like they're going numb from sitting in a bad position for too long—and process the doctor's words instead.
"You're saying I've been poisoned, doc?" You butt in crudely, letting out a humourless laugh as you begin fidgeting with your hands, clenching and unclenching them to get rid of those tingles while a cold drop of sweat trickles down your left temple and is swiftly wiped away by Soap's gloved thumb.
"Fuckin’ hell, lass. Ye dinnae look too good," Soap mutters under his breath, exchanging a concerned glance with Gaz, who then looks to the captain for guidance with a serious frown.
When Gaz turns around abruptly, you get a whiff of his scent, and you're ashamed to admit to yourself that you inhale it deeply—musk and sweat and gunpowder smoke, a hint of his fancy body wash lingering underneath all the grime. A perfect concoction of what is entirely Gaz.
It's intoxicating. Mouth-watering.
And absolutely inappropriate, because he's one of your best friends and a comrade.
What the hell is happening?
Of all the injuries and wounds you've already acquired during missions and deployments, this must be the fucking worst. You'd rather get shot or stabbed than sit here, feel strange as hell and be ogled like a failed science experiment.
Price's eyes flicker to Ghost, who hasn't said a word since sitting you down on the table with a gruff order to stay seated, and then to his three sergeants, lingering on you heavily before he turns back.
"What kind of bloody toxin?"
"It seems to be some sort of aphrodisiac, but… uh, well—about fifty times worse than that."
The other scientist, Professor Doctor Adebayo, answers tentatively, as if explaining it out loud makes him uncomfortable.
"The reports say it turns men—"
Dr. Adebayo hesitates, clearing his throat and looking between Laswell and Captain Price, until the latter lets out an exasperated sigh.
"Turns them what, doc?"
It's Laswell who says it eventually, "Turns them aggressive, John. Feral with lust, as ridiculous as that might sound."
The CIA agent finally looks in your direction before approaching you slowly while Dr. Adebayo seems to heave a sigh of relief as soon as she takes over.
"A high dose of it can be used to lower one's inhibition levels to a point where even the most honourable man would resort to sexual assault to ease his urges."
Her factual yet grim explanation makes the tension inside the briefing room spike tenfold. Every man present tenses up, visibly uncomfortable—Ghost especially, who's practically vibrating with strain.
Using a toxin like that—a bioweapon—on soldiers in the field could lead to even more and worse war crimes, and everyone here is aware of that.
"Wait—what? What the fuck?" Gaz utters, bristling next to you while you grip the edge of the table, gritting your teeth as the tingles intensify and wreck through your body in waves that leave you shuddering with each one.
"'Scuse me, what now?" You scoff. "Does that mean I'm gonna turn into a fuckin' nympho any second?"
Multiple pairs of eyes snap towards you at your choice of words. Some look intense and laced with worry. Price scolds you with one glance. Others look mildly amused—the latter being Soap, who lets out a snort but tries to cover it up with a fake cough into his fist.
Laswell surveys you intently, though her voice softens when she addresses you directly.
"How are you feeling, Sergeant? Are you in pain? Nauseous?"
A beat of silence follows. Your eyes flutter briefly as you meet Kate's blue gaze, and you exhale a long breath through your nostrils before you answer curtly.
"I feel weird."
You feel like you're about to get your period, but you keep that information to yourself for now and try not to wrap your arms around yourself self-soothingly.
Your lower abdomen is starting to tighten and cramp. Your gut twists like you just chugged a steaming bowl of soup and your limbs keep tingling—from your toes to your fingertips, and up to the tip of your nose. Tiny vibrations along with hot and cold flushes that make you quake and squirm in your seat on the table.
Kate squints at you, though she doesn't press further.
"What kind of effect will this stuff have on her?" Price enquires gruffly, more level-headed this time, his gaze shifting from the two scientists over to you and then back.
Meanwhile, as you crank your sore neck from left to right to get a good crack in, your eyes catch sight of Soap's muscular forearms and—to your horror—they linger.
The sleeves of his combat fatigues are rolled up to his elbows, exposing dark coarse hair and thick veins and that damn SAS insignia tattoo.
You want to trace the black lines with your tongue and imagine the salt of his skin on your parched taste buds.
And your eyes widen when a sudden rush of mind-numbing, pulsating heat makes you squeeze your thighs together as you clench your jaw to keep the lewd sound bubbling up in your throat from escaping.
Soap shoots you a quizzical look, one eyebrow raising as you avert your eyes from him swiftly, heat crawling up your neck and prickling beneath your skin.
"Fuck," you breathe, doubling over with a groan as the muscles in your thighs and lower abdomen begin to cramp up painfully while you can practically feel your pussy start convulsing around nothing, leaking with arousal and soaking into your underwear.
In a matter of seconds, your team—Ghost included, like a solid wall of quiet reassurance—are by your side, keeping you upright, asking questions, though their deep, accented voices are muffled as your quickening heartbeat begins to thud in your ears.
Their every touch seems to burn through the thick layers of your kit.
"Kate—Kate," Price is by her side in a few long strides, ducking his head to get on eye-level with her as he points at the two scientists accusingly, though Kate is already on her smartphone, contacting the lab again.
Price huffs like an angry bull trying to protect his herd as he turns his attention back to Dr. Boswel and Dr. Adebayo, who seem to be in a frenzied discussion, watching the way you're cramping and writhing.
"What the fuck is happening to her?" He barks at them, demanding an answer yesterday.
"It's—it's the toxin," Dr. Boswel stammers obviously, blinking up at Captain Price from behind his glasses. "She didn't get the full dose, but it's still—" He pauses, eyes flickering nervously under the captain's glare. "—bad."
Another gut-wrenching moan from you echoes through the briefing room as you squirm in Gaz's embrace, and Price must restrain himself from directing his wrath towards the two men in front of him—it's not their fault, after all.
It's his.
"Oxytocin might help… neutralize the toxin in her body," Dr. Adebayo remarks, clicking his pen nervously as he stares at his laptop screen before meeting Dr. Boswel's eyes, who is waiting for an elucidation.
"The hormone," Dr. Adebayo clears his throat again, clearly uncomfortable, "—not the drug." He clarifies, clicking his pen a few more times.
Laswell lowers her phone and shares a look with Price, holding an entire conversation with one long, meaningful glance, the one learned and perfected over more than a decade of working together, when Gaz's voice breaks through the chaos, calling for attention.
"Cap'n! What do we do?!"
You're not brought back to the barracks but Captain Price's private quarters.
Your squad makes sure to keep you out of sight in your condition; away from prying eyes while Ghost sneaks through the shadows with your quivering form cradled against his chest, carrying you bridal style like you're something fragile, something vulnerable he must protect.
Once safely inside the captain's flat, the curtains are drawn before your heavy gear is stripped from you, all while you don't even bother paying attention to who is grabbing or holding you at this point.
All that matters is someone touching you.
Your brain is mush, reduced to your most simple and carnal desires. No shame nor worry about the needy noises you're making whenever one of their big, strong hands strips another layer of clothing.
"Shit, I think she has a fever," Gaz mutters, cupping your face with both hands as he investigates your hazy, unfocused eyes while you let out another pathetic whimper. "She's completely out of it."
"Get her into the guest bedroom. Down the hall, first door on the left," Price orders gruffly, trying to keep his eyes from wandering up and down the length of your trembling, half-naked body.
"I'll call the senior consultant."
Ghost grumbles a low curse under his breath when your hand brushes over the front of his crotch—by accident or voluntarily this time, he doesn't dare imagine—and leaves the guest bedroom while Gaz and Soap manoeuvre you onto the king-sized bed.
Meanwhile, you don't care about the effect your uncharacteristic behaviour has on your teammates and superiors.
Whenever they try to make you drink or take an easy bite of food—whether it's a chewy protein bar or an overripe banana, because Price has no proper groceries at his place—you twist in whoever's embrace you're in, turning your scrunched-up face away like a petulant toddler.
"I don't wanna," you whine and hiccup, protesting each time Gaz tries to lift the rim of the water bottle to your lips, your speech now slightly slurred, glossy eyes averting their gaze as you breathe shallowly, squirming while Soap keeps you propped up with your back resting against his chest on the bed.
Gaz, who has been trying again to make you drink a sip of water for the past twenty minutes, looks back at his Lieutenant and Captain helplessly.
"Doc said we need to keep her hydrated," Price announces, rubbing his bare hand over his tired face. "Keep flushing that bloody poison outta her system and—"
Suddenly, Ghost's deep, gravelly voice interrupts the captain's speech with a harsh bite to it. "Johnny."
Soap, who has been trying his best to ignore the way you keep grinding your arse against his crotch in this position, ducks his head at the sharp and sudden warning.
"What? 'M not doin' anythin'," he grunts before sucking in a sharp breath as his cock keeps stirring and twitching in his combat trousers, "Fuck, lass, please—"
Soap tries to keep you from moving; his ungloved hands get a firm hold of your hips, but you're practically panting and mewling in his lap, making it harder for him not to crumble under the pressure building up in his dick.
Then Gaz is swift to pluck you out of the Scot's embrace with a disdainful frown, like you're some toy that was stolen from him.
"Don't be a fuckin' perv, Soap," Gaz snaps, cradling you into his arms, where you immediately begin pawing at his black compression shirt, determined to get your palms under it and on his bare skin.
"She can't consent!"
It's Price who approaches the bed then, while Ghost stays leaning against the doorframe, keeping a keen eye on the situation.
"Enough! Both of you," Price barks, eyes flashing before his shoulders drop with a rough sigh. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Doc said it might help if—"
John stops mid-sentence, clenching his strong jaw. He can't believe what he is about to say, and he crosses his arms over his chest again, feigning control while he internally braces himself for his next words.
"Those doctors said it might help if she… climaxes."
His words hang in the air like a thick fog that no one can quite see through nor think in, and everyone seems to be holding their breath while you finally manage to tug Gaz's shirt out of his waistband, making him cuss under his breath when you go on to lick a long, wet stripe over his exposed abs like some feral lioness, utterly hungry for a taste.
"Shit—Babygirl, no, d-don't—" Gaz stammers helplessly while a rush of heat goes straight to his neck and cock simultaneously, overwhelmingly so.
He pushes you away by your shoulders—and hates himself for how reluctant he is at it—and he winces when your blunt nails claw into his bulging biceps, digging into his skin even through his shirt with another whimper.
"Please, Kyle… Let me—" you mewl, batting your eyelashes up at him. "It—It fuckin’ hurts."
Soap pushes his fists into his eye sockets, heaving a deep breath that turns into a frustrated groan. "Steamin' Jesus, lass, ye’re fuckin’ killin' us here."
"Take a bloody walk, MacTavish," Price orders, pointing his thumb at the door over his shoulder, and while Soap climbs off the mattress, grumbling to himself with an obvious erection pressing against the seam of his zipper, Price addresses Gaz.
"And you, Garrick, take—" He hesitates again, balling his hands into fists at his sides, trying to keep his own body in check at the sight and sounds of you, before he nudges his chin towards the door of the bathroom.
"Take her to the shower to get the fever down and… help her."
The captain's last words are nothing more than a strained grumble.
Gaz gapes at his superior. Soap freezes in his steps at the end of the bed, openly gawking and blinking like he didn't just hear right. Ghost visibly stiffens and shifts his stance, still leaning against the doorframe of the guest bedroom. No one can see the way he grits his teeth so hard he might chip a tooth behind his balaclava.
"But sir—"
Price shakes his head; brows set in a stern frown as he holds Gaz's widened gaze.
"She'd want you to take care of her if she could actually consent to it. And that's an order, Sergeant."
Ghost wants to disagree, but keeps his mouth shut and exhales a sharp huff of contempt instead.
The rest of the men try to distract themselves around Captain Price's flat while Gaz takes you to the en-suite bathroom like he was ordered to.
Not asked, ordered to.
He keeps repeating that in his head as he walks you towards the bathroom door with his arm around your waist, your body listing into his side like you've forgotten how to hold yourself upright. His jaw is set so tight his molars ache.
He's been ordered to do a lot of things in his career. Clear rooms. Hold positions under fire. Drag wounded men through mud while rounds cracked overhead. He's followed every order without hesitation, because that's what good soldiers do—they trust the chain of command and they execute.
This doesn't feel like any of those things.
He keeps the bathroom door unlocked—just in case you faint and he needs help—and lets out a huff when you fling yourself into his body suddenly and the air is knocked from his lungs.
"Easy," he pleads with you while his head dips down, and he inhales your familiar scent before he can stop himself. Sweat and the remnants of whatever lotion you put on this morning underneath your gear before the mission, something warm and sweet that he's caught whiffs of a hundred times before in passing and never let himself think about for longer than a second.
"Easy there, love," he tries again, his trembling hands wrapping around your midriff tentatively.
Gaz hates these circumstances. Hates how the mission ended in such a bloody mess. Hates how excited he is to undress you to your underwear, and he despises that this is how he'll get to have you for the first time.
This is not how he'd imagined it.
He never imagined it. Not in any concrete, detailed way. Not like he'd planned it in his head, step by step—the restaurant he'd take you to first, somewhere nice but not so nice you'd take the piss out of him for it. The way he'd tell you after the second drink, maybe the third, that he'd been thinking about you. Casually. Like it hadn't been eating him alive for months.
He hadn't planned any of that.
Fucking liar.
You make a sound against his chest, somewhere between a sob and a moan, and your fingers twist into the wet fabric of his compression shirt, tugging weakly.
"Kyle… Kyle, I need—"
"I know," he murmurs, and his voice comes out rougher than he intends. "I know, love. C'mon."
He manoeuvres you towards the shower, reaching past you to turn the dial to lukewarm. The water sputters, then hisses to life against the tile, and steam begins to curl at the edges of the glass.
You're still in your underwear—plain, standard issue, nothing designed to be sexy—and it doesn't matter, because the sight of you trembling and desperate in front of him with water beginning to mist across your skin is doing things to his head that no amount of mental discipline can counter.
He starts to dismantle his assault rifle in his head.
You stumble into the shower cabin and he follows, still fully clothed. The water hits his chest and soaks through his compression shirt in seconds, plastering the fabric to his skin, and the cold shock of it helps. Briefly.
Bolt. Firing pin. Cam pin.
"C'mon, Babygirl," he coos at you as he turns your quivering body in his embrace until your back is flush against his chest. One arm wraps tightly below your breasts, forearm pushing up against the swell of them through the soaked fabric of your bra, and he tries, and fails miserably, not to take a long look over your shoulder.
Buffer tube. Buffer spring. Buffer.
You melt against his body and his cock throbs in his combat trousers, straining against his briefs uncomfortably. The water is doing nothing for the heat radiating off your skin. If anything, you're burning hotter, pressing back into him with small, involuntary rolls of your hips that make his breath stutter.
Lower receiver. Trigger assembly. Trigger—
"Please," you whimper, and his entire train of thought derails.
Your head lolls back against his shoulder, exposing the column of your throat, and he can see the way your pulse hammers beneath the surface, rapid and frantic. Your hips buck against his hand when he finally—finally—lets it trail down over your lower belly, his calloused fingers dragging across the wet skin, feeling the muscles jump and twitch beneath his touch.
"Yes—yes—yes—" you chant breathlessly, and your hips cant forward, chasing his hand with a desperation that makes something crack open in his chest.
Fuck—fuck—fuck—fuck.
He cups your pussy through your knickers and the heat of you against his palm nearly makes his knees buckle. He can feel you through the thin, soaked fabric and he's not sure if the wetness is from the shower stream or if it's all you.
His chest is heaving when he finally gathers enough courage to dip his long fingers beneath the waistband of your underwear. His jaw clenches and his mind grasps desperately for the drills again—clear left, clear right, move to the next room, check your corners—anything to stay anchored while you let out a moan that echoes off the tile walls and punches straight through him.
You're so wet, so swollen, it's obscene. His fingers slide through your folds with zero resistance and the groan that rips from deep within his chest is involuntary, guttural, ashamed. He can feel your arousal ooze from your entrance, slick and hot, and he can already tell how tight you'd feel clenching around his fingers, how you'd—
No. He's not going there.
"Fuck," he curses under his breath, more to himself than to you. "I'm only doin' this for you, Babygirl. This is only about you."
He says it like a prayer. Like if he repeats it enough, it'll be true.
His fingers press on your clit, pulsing and twitching already, and he starts rubbing small, firm circles over it, adjusting the pressure when your breath hitches or your thighs clamp around his wrist. He reads your body like he reads a room. Methodically, attentive, and cataloguing every reaction.
You writhe and squirm in his tight grip, your nails digging into the arm he has banded around your ribs, and every sound you make, every whimper, and stuttered gasp of his name, chips away at the wall he's trying to keep standing between following an order and wanting this.
"M-more, Kyle, please!"
Gaz curses himself, but he gives you more.
Two fingers pressing into you, slow and careful despite every instinct screaming at him to give you what you're begging for. You clench around him immediately, hot and tight and silky, and his cock kicks in his trousers so hard he must bite the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning.
He curls his fingers, searching for the spot that makes your thighs shake, and when he finds it, you keen so loudly the sound bounces off every hard surface in the small bathroom.
"That's it," he murmurs against your temple, his lips brushing your skin without quite kissing. "That's it, love. Let go for me."
He's not sure when he started talking to you like this. Somewhere between the first touch and the second, the clinical detachment he'd been clinging to crumbled and something else took its place—something tender and fierce and terrifyingly honest.
Your first orgasm hits you hard enough to make your entire body seize in his arms, your back arching away from his chest as a strangled cry tears from your throat. He holds you through it, fingers still working, still pressing and giving, because even as the tremors wrack through you and your legs give out, he can feel your body already winding up again, the toxin refusing to let you rest.
"Shh, shh, I've got you," he breathes, adjusting his grip to take your full weight when your knees buckle entirely. "I've got you."
You cum again two minutes later, and then again after that, and again, and Gaz loses count somewhere around the fifth or sixth time, when his fingers are cramping and his arm is trembling from holding you upright and the water has long since turned cold.
Each time, he thinks it'll be enough, and each time, your body coils tight again within minutes, the toxin driving you right back to the edge with a cruelty that makes him want to put his fist through the tile.
He doesn’t want to imagine what a full dose would have done to you. To anyone.
When you tell him that you're hurting—repeatedly, begging him to make you cum in that desperate, broken tone of yours—the young Sergeant is sure something dies inside him on the spot.
"Kyle—Kyle, I need more, I need you to—please—Fuck, please!"
He knows what you're asking for. You're grinding back against his cock, which has been rock-hard and aching for what feels like hours, and every roll of your hips sends a jolt of white-hot arousal through him that he must physically brace against.
"I can't," he grits out, and it takes everything in him. "Christ. I can't do that to you. Not like this."
"Please—"
"No, Babygirl." His voice cracks on the word, and he presses his forehead against the back of your head, squeezing his eyes shut. "Not like this."
He drops to his knees instead.
The tile is hard and unforgiving under his kneecaps and the now cold water from the shower hits the back of his neck, but he barely registers any of it as he turns you to face him and hooks one of your legs over his shoulder.
He looks up at you once—your hazy, unfocused eyes, the way your chest heaves, the water running in rivulets down your body—and then he leans forward and drags his tongue through your folds in one long, broad stroke.
The sound you make is devastating.
Your hands fly to his head, fingers scrabbling for purchase on his wet hair, and your hips jerk forward so violently he must grip your thigh to keep you steady. He groans against you, he can't help it, and the vibration makes you cry out again, blunt nails raking over his scalp.
Gaz eats you like he's starving for it, because the truth he can't say out loud is that he is.
He's thought about this. Dreamed about it. Wanked to the idea of it in the dark of his bunk with his fist shoved against his mouth to keep quiet. And now he's here, on his knees in his Captain's shower with cold water running down his back and your taste flooding his mouth, and it's everything and nothing like what he imagined because you're not choosing this—you're not choosing him—and that knowledge sits in his chest like a brick.
But he doesn't stop.
Gaz licks and sucks and fucks you with his tongue until his jaw aches and your thighs are shaking so badly you can barely stand, even with his hands gripping your hips. He makes you cum on his mouth twice, then thrice, pressing his face into you each time your body locks up, working you through it with relentless, single-minded focus because if he stops to think about what this means, about what happens after, he'll fall apart.
When he finally pulls back, his lips are swollen, his chin is slick and his cock is so hard it genuinely hurts. You're still whimpering, still reaching for him, still not done, and the toxin is still pumping through your veins with no sign of stopping.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and exhales a shaky breath, pressing his forehead against your hip.
"I need—" His voice is wrecked. He swallows hard, then tries again. "I need a minute."
Not because he's tired, or his fingers are cramped and his jaw is sore and his knees are bruised from the tile. No.
But if he stays on his knees in front of you for one more second, he's going to give you what you're begging for, and he will never forgive himself for it.
He stands on unsteady legs, turns the shower off, and reaches for the towel hanging on the rack outside the cabin. His hands are shaking as he wraps it around, and you cling to it loosely, swaying on your feet.
"C'mon," he says, guiding you towards the door with one hand on the small of your back. His voice has steadied, but his eyes haven't. "Let's get you dried off."
You're protesting. He's cursing under his breath. There's shuffling, a stumble, and then he grabs the door handle and swings it open—
And Soap nearly falls backwards into the bathroom.
"Soap!"
The Scotsman catches himself on the doorway, one hand gripping the frame as he glances over his shoulder with a look that's not even remotely sheepish enough for a man who was clearly pressing his ear to the door thirty seconds ago.
Gaz is still wearing his clothes, though they're completely drenched—his compression shirt is a second skin, his combat trousers heavy with water, boots squelching on the tile. He's holding you by the forearm as you stand next to him, loose towel wrapped around your body, still trembling, still making those small, desperate sounds in the back of your throat.
"The fuck, mate? Did you eavesdrop on us?"
Soap shrugs as he straightens up, adjusting his stance in a way that's clearly meant to disguise the state of his trousers. "Was jus' checkin' on ye."
"Checking on—" Gaz's jaw works, nostrils flaring. He wants to snap, wants to shove Soap back into the hallway and slam the door, but he's running on fumes and you're leaning into him again, your face pressed against his soaked chest, mumbling incoherently.
"She needs—" Gaz starts, then stops. Looks down at you, back up at Soap. Something heavy passes between the two men, unspoken but understood.
"She needs more than I can give her right now," he finishes quietly, and the admission costs him more than any of them will ever know.
Soap's expression shifts. The boyish smirk drops, replaced by something sobered, and he gives Gaz a short nod—the kind they exchange in the field when one of them is spent and the other takes point.
"A'right," Soap answers, surprisingly steady, rolling his broad shoulders. "Ah’ve got 'er."
Gaz transfers you into Soap's waiting arms with a gentleness that borders on reverent—one hand on the back of your head, the other guiding your shoulders—and he doesn't let go until he's sure Soap has you secure.
Then he walks past them both, water dripping from every inch of him, and doesn't look back.
He makes it to the kitchen before his hands start shaking badly enough that he has to brace them flat on the counter. He stands there, head bowed, water pooling on the linoleum beneath him, and breathes.
Ghost is leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed, and he doesn't say a word.
There is no need to.
Soap carries you back to the bed like you weigh nothing to him; one arm under your knees, the other around your back, the towel slipping loose and neither of you caring, and he lays you down with a surprising gentleness that contradicts every tightly coiled muscle in his body.
He's been hard since the briefing room, balls throbbing uncomfortably. Over two hours of it. The kind of persistent, throbbing ache that sits low in his gut and pulses in time with his heartbeat, and he's been dealing with it the way he deals with most discomfort.
By ignoring it aggressively and hoping it fucks off on its own.
It has not fucked off unfortunately. Truth be told, he’d be worried about himself if it did.
"Right then," he mutters, kneeling on the mattress beside you as he cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders again like he's about to breach a door. "Let's sort ye out, hen."
And that's the thing about Johnny MacTavish—he doesn't agonise. Not the way Gaz does, all quiet guilt and moral calculus. Soap's moral framework is simpler, blunter, built from different materials. You're his teammate, you're hurting, and he can help. Everything else is noise.
That doesn't mean he's unaffected; doesn't mean his hands aren't shaking when he settles between your legs and pushes the towel fully away from your body, or that his breath doesn't hitch hard enough to hear when he gets his first proper look at you fully naked, spread out on the white sheets with your chest heaving and your thighs trembling and your eyes half-lidded, glassy, barely tracking him.
Christ, you're beautiful.
He's thought about this. Fuck. Of course he has. He's not a bloody monk, and you're you.
He's thought about it in the gym when you spot him on the bench press and your face hovers above his, upside down and grinning. He's thought about it on long transports when you fall asleep against his shoulder and he stays perfectly still for hours so you won't wake up. Or when you laugh at his shite jokes that no one else finds funny, when you steal chips off his plate in the mess, when you call him Johnny instead of Soap and don't even notice you've done it.
He's thought about it a lot.
But not like this.
"You with me?" he asks, tapping your cheek lightly with two fingers. Your eyes roll towards him, struggling to focus, and you make a sound that's part whimper, part plea.
Close enough.
"A'right, sweetheart. I've got ye."
He doesn't ease into it the way Gaz did. Where Gaz was methodical, with careful touches, measured pressure, and constant checking, Soap is instinct. He reads you through vibration and sound, adjusts on the fly, follows the frequency of your moans like he's tuning into a signal.
He dips his head between your thighs and licks into you without preamble, broad and hot and greedy, and the noise that tears out of you rattles something loose in his chest.
"Fuck—tha's it," he groans against you, the vibration making your hips jolt, and his big hands grip the backs of your thighs to keep you spread open and steady. "Tha's my bonnie girl."
He's not quiet about it, either. Soap eats pussy the way he does most things. With enthusiasm, commitment, and absolutely zero self-consciousness. Wet, filthy sounds fill the bedroom, punctuated by his own groans and your increasingly incoherent cries, and he doesn't give a single shit that the door is open, and his team can hear every obscene noise he's wringing out of you.
Let them hear.
His tongue works over your clit in fast, tight circles, then broad, flat strokes, alternating rhythm and pressure every time he feels your thighs start to shake. When you try to close your legs, he pins them open with his forearms. When you try to squirm away—overstimulated, oversensitive, too much and not enough at the same time—he follows relentlessly, dragging you back by the hips with a growl that rumbles against your soaked flesh.
"Nuh-uh. Stay still f'me."
He makes you cum with his mouth in under five minutes and then doesn't stop.
Your fingers twist into the sheets, into his mohawk, clawing at his scalp as your back arches off the mattress and a wrecked sob punches out of your lungs. Soap groans in response, the sound reverential, like your pleasure is a hymn and he's on his knees in church.
He keeps going. Lapping at you through the aftershocks, sucking your clit between his lips until you're keening, pressing his tongue inside you just to feel you clench around it, and when you cum again with his name breaking apart on your lips—Johnny, Johnny, fuck yes, Johnny—he nearly blacks out from how hard his cock throbs in response.
His hips have started moving on their own. Small, involuntary rolls against the mattress, his aching cock grinding against the sheets through his combat trousers, and he knows he should fucking stop, should pull his hips back, should focus on you and not the desperate friction building between his body and the bed.
But he doesn't stop.
He is physically incapable.
You taste like honey and salt and something almost medicinal underneath—the toxin, probably, working its way out of your system through your sweat and your slick—and he's drunk on it. Drunk on the way you say his name, how your thighs tremble against the sides of his head, drunk on the wet sounds of his tongue on your cunt and the way you keep pulling his face closer, harder, more.
"God—fuck—lass, ye taste so fuckin' good—"
He's rutting against the mattress in earnest now, his hips snapping in sharp, desperate little thrusts, and the friction is nowhere near enough and exactly too much at the same time.
The sheets are going to be ruined. He doesn't care. Can't. He’s a weak man, and his entire world has narrowed to the taste of you on his tongue and the ache in his junk and the way your body keeps arching into him like he's the only thing keeping you alive.
"Please—please, Johnny, I need—I can't—"
"I know, hen, I know—" he pants against your inner thigh, pressing a biting kiss there that makes you yelp, "—jus' one more, c'mon, give me one more, aye?"
He flickers his tongue, seals his mouth over your clit and sucks, hard, and you shatter. Your thighs clamp around his head, your hands fist in his hair so tightly it stings, and the scream that rips from your throat is ragged and raw and so fucking beautiful that he comes.
Inside his combat pants.
His hips stutter against the mattress and a guttural, muffled groan vibrates against your pussy as his cock pulses and spills, hot and wet, soaking through his briefs and into his trousers. His arms shake, his vision whites out for a second, and he has to press his forehead against your inner thigh and just breathe through it, chest heaving, while you whimper above him, still trembling from your own orgasm.
He pulls back slowly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and the reality of what just happened settles over him like a cloth soaked in ice water. He stares down at himself, at the damp patch darkening the front of his trousers, and lets out a long, defeated exhale.
"MacTavish."
Ghost's voice comes from the doorway; flat and sharp, dripping with contempt.
Soap closes his eyes, disappointed in himself, exhaling through his nose. "Aye. I know."
"You know?" Price's voice joins Ghost's, closer, much heavier. The captain is standing just inside the bedroom now, arms folded, jaw set. He looks at Soap the way a father looks at a teenage son caught doing something monumentally stupid.
"Get yourself sorted. Now."
Soap doesn't argue. He climbs off the bed on unsteady legs, not meeting anyone's eyes, and adjusts his trousers with a grimace as he shuffles past Ghost in the doorway.
Ghost doesn't move to let him pass. Makes him squeeze by, shoulder to shoulder, just to make it uncomfortable.
"Disgusting," Ghost mutters, low enough that only Soap hears it.
"Fuck off, LT," Soap mutters back, and there's no heat in it. Just shame.
You don't notice the shift at first.
One moment there are hands and mouths on you, voices and pressure and friction. The next, everything is quieter. Stiller. The mattress dips on one side and stays dipped, a solid weight settling beside you but not on you, not against you, not close enough to touch.
You whine at the loss of contact, of heat, of anything, and reach blindly for whoever is there.
A large hand catches your wrist. Gentle and firm, holding it in place.
"Don't."
One word. Low and gravelly, scraped raw like it was dragged over broken glass and wire mesh on its way out of his throat.
Ghost.
He's sitting on the edge of the bed with his back straight and his boots still on, because taking his boots off would mean he's staying, and staying would mean—he doesn't finish the thought.
Price asked him to sit with you while Gaz and Soap pulled themselves together. Asked this time, not ordered, because Price knows that ordering Ghost to do something he doesn't want to do is about as effective as ordering the tide to turn. Ghost agreed with a single nod, and now here he is, and every muscle in his body is locked so tight he might snap a tendon.
You're lying on your side, curled in on yourself, wearing nothing but your sodden underwear again and the ghost of everyone else's touch on your skin. The towel is long gone. Your body is still trembling, still feverish, still caught in the grip of the toxin, and the soft, pained sounds you keep making are doing things to him that he absolutely cannot allow.
He's hard. Has been since you doubled over and moaned and he had to watch your body betray you in front of everyone. His cock is straining against his trousers, thick and heavy and insistent.
Ghost pretends it isn’t. He's very good at pretending things don't exist.
"Simon…"
His jaw clenches beneath the balaclava. You rarely use his first name—none of them do—and hearing it now, in that voice, breathy and desperate and small, is a kind of cruelty he wasn't prepared for.
"You need to drink something," he murmurs, and reaches for the water bottle on the nightstand without looking at you.
"Don't want—"
"Wasn't bloody askin’."
He unscrews the cap and turns to you, and the mistake—the critical, tactical, unforgivable mistake—is that he looks at your face next.
Your eyes are glassy and wet, your lips parted around shallow little breaths, and you're looking up at him like he's the only solid thing in a world that's been spinning for hours.
Not with lust—not the way you looked at Gaz and Soap—but with something quieter. Something that reaches past the toxin and grabs hold of something deeper.
Trust.
You trust him. Even now, reduced to your basest instincts, your intoxicated, unhinged brain still recognises him as safe.
Something fractures behind his ribs, and he shuts it down immediately, brutally, the way he shuts down everything that threatens to breach the walls.
"Sit up," he orders, and his voice is soft yet steady even if the rest of him isn't. He slides one hand behind your head—just his palm, just enough to support your neck—and lifts the bottle to your lips.
You drink. Slowly, reluctantly, with small sips that dribble down your chin, but you drink. He holds the bottle still and watches the column of your throat move with each swallow, and when a drop of water runs from the corner of your mouth and trails down your neck, dark eyes track it all the way to your collarbone before catching himself and looking away.
"More," he says curtly, bringing the bottle back.
You manage a few more sips before turning your head away with a pitiful sound, and he lets you, setting the bottle aside. His hand lingers on the back of your head a moment too long—his thumb brushing once against the nape of your neck—before he pulls it back like he's been burned.
You reach for him again. Fingers closing around the fabric of his sleeve, tugging weakly.
"Stay. Please. Don't—Don't go."
"'M not goin’ anywhere." The words come out before he can vet them, gruff and low, and he immediately resents himself for saying them so quickly, so easily, like a confession slipped out under duress.
He lets you hold onto his sleeve. That much he can allow. That much won't cross a line he cannot uncross.
You shift closer, seeking warmth, and your body curls towards him until your forehead is pressed against his thigh. He goes completely rigid, every muscle locking and nerve firing, and his hands hover in the air on either side of you, not touching, not pulling away, suspended in the unbearable middle ground of a man who wants desperately but won't take.
Another small whimper from you. Not desire this time but pain. The cramps rolling through your body in waves, the toxin still doing its vicious work even after everything Gaz and Soap wrung from you. You're shaking, and not just from arousal. You're exhausted. Dehydrated. Your body is at war with itself.
Ghost is not a gentle man. He knows this about himself the way he knows his blood type and his boot size. It's a fact, unalterable, built into the architecture. He doesn't comfort. He doesn't soothe. He handles.
But.
His hand comes down on the back of your head, and it stays.
Heavy and warm through the leather of his glove. Not stroking just resting, a solid weight against your skull, and you let out a breath that sounds like it's been trapped in your lungs for hours.
You stop shaking. Not entirely. The tremors are still there, running through you in small aftershocks, but the worst of it eases under the steady pressure of his palm, like he's an anchor and you've been drifting.
"Ghost?" Your voice is small, barely a whisper.
"Yeah."
"It hurts."
He closes his eyes behind the mask. His hand presses down just slightly—a fraction more weight, a fraction more warmth—and his throat works around words that don't come.
He knows it hurts. He knows Gaz and Soap's efforts weren't enough. He knows what the doctors said—what Price said—and he knows what would fix it, and he can't.
Not because he doesn't want to. Because he wants it too fucking much.
Simon Riley is not a man who trusts himself with things he wants.
Wanting, in his experience, is the first step towards destroying, and he has destroyed enough for one lifetime. Touching you now the way his body is screaming at him to would not be careful or measured or controlled or gentle.
It would be all consuming, and he would take too much, and he would never be able to look you in the eyes again.
So he sits on the edge of the bed with his boots on and his cock aching and his hand on the back of your head, and he holds himself perfectly, agonisingly still. Just a solid shadow in a bedroom.
You press your face harder against his thigh and he lets you. Your fingers tighten on his sleeve and he lets you. Your breath evens out incrementally but still too fast, still too shallow, though calmer now, and he lets that happen too, guarding it like a perimeter, daring anything to disturb it.
He doesn't know how long you stay like that. Long enough for the light under the curtains to shift and for his leg to go numb beneath the pressure of your head. Long enough for Gaz to appear in the doorway, freshly changed into borrowed civvies, and stop dead at the sight of them.
Ghost meets his eyes over the top of your head. His expression is unreadable behind the mask, but his hand doesn't move from your hair, and that says more than his face ever could.
Gaz nods once and backs out without a word.
In the kitchen, Price is pouring two fingers of whisky into a tumbler and staring at the far wall like it owes him money. Soap is sitting at the table in a pair of Price's joggers, his soiled trousers balled up in a plastic bag at his feet, looking like a scolded dog.
"She's calmer," Gaz says quietly as he enters, and both men look up. "Ghost's with her."
Price takes a long drink. Sets the glass down. Rubs a hand over his beard.
"It's not enough, is it."
It's not a question and Gaz doesn't answer it.
"She's still in pain. She keeps—" He stops and swallows thickly. "She keeps asking. Saying she’s in pain."
The captain stares at the whisky in his glass. The silence stretches, tense and heavy, pressing in on the walls of the small kitchen.
"She needs more than fingers and a mouth," Soap says bluntly, because someone fucking has to, and delicacy has never been his strong suit. Gaz shoots him a look, but Soap holds it, unapologetic.
"He's right," Price agrees suddenly, and the words taste like bile. He pushes away from the counter and stands to his full height, shoulders squared, and for a moment he looks every inch the officer. Burdened, resolute, carrying a decision he'll second-guess for the rest of his life.
"Gentlemen's agreement," he says. His voice is low, steady, absolute. "What happens tonight stays in this flat. No one treats her differently when this is over. No one brings it up unless she does. No one holds it over anyone, including himself."
He looks at each of them in turn—Gaz, then Soap—and holds until he gets a nod from both.
"And we tell Ghost."
Ghost doesn't agree.
He listens to the terms of the gentlemen's agreement from the doorway of the kitchen, arms crossed, stance wide, radiating the kind of stillness that makes lesser men instinctively check their exits. When Price finishes, Ghost holds the silence for a long, loaded beat.
And then: "No."
Price doesn't flinch. "No to which part?"
"All of it. My part." Ghost's voice is flat and final, stripped of everything except the decision itself. "I'll stay with her. I won't fuck her."
Soap opens his mouth—probably to say something spectacularly unhelpful—and Gaz kicks him under the table without looking.
Price studies his Lieutenant for a moment. Then he nods once, heavy with an understanding that doesn't need to be spoken.
"Fair enough." He rolls his sleeves up to his forearms. The mechanical motion of a man preparing for something he cannot delegate. "I'll go first."
No one dares to argue.
Unlike Soap, Price closes the guest bedroom door behind him and stands there for a moment with his hand still on the knob, just breathing. It smells of sex and pheromones, but wrong.
The room is dim. Someone turned off the overhead and left only the bedside lamp, casting everything in low amber light that softens the edges of the furniture and the shape of you on the bed. You're curled on your side, knees drawn up, one hand clutching the pillow beneath your head. The sheets are wrecked; damp and twisted, pulled loose from two corners, and your skin glistens with a thin sheen of sweat.
You look small.
That's the thing that hits him first and hits him hardest.
You're one of his soldiers. He's seen you clear buildings, haul wounded men twice your size to extraction, take a round to the vest and get back up swearing. You are not small. You have never been small or fragile.
But you look it now, trembling and fever-damp and reduced to a version of yourself that he never should have had to witness, and the weight of that sits on his shoulders like a ruck full of stones.
He crosses the room in a few strides and sits on the edge of the mattress. The frame groans under his weight.
"Sergeant."
You stir, your head lifting, and your eyes find his face. They're glassy and unfocused, but there's a flicker of recognition—Captain—before it's swallowed by the next wave rolling through your body. You let out a sound that's half sob, half moan, your thighs pressing together, and your hand reaches out blindly until your fingers catch the fabric of his shirt.
"It hurts," you whisper. "Still hurts. Why does it still—"
"I know." He catches your wrist, holds it. His thumb presses against your pulse point to check, and it’s rapid, thready, way too fast for simply lying on a bed. "I'm going to help you."
He says it the way he says we're moving on that compound at 0300 or I need eyes on that ridgeline. Leaving no room for ambiguity, because if he allows ambiguity into this room, he'll start thinking about what he's doing, and if he starts thinking, he'll stop, and if he stops.
You'll keep hurting. Under his command.
He stands long enough to strip his shirt over his head and remove his belt, and then he's back on the bed, propped against the headboard with you between his legs, your back against his bare chest; coarse salt and pepper hair rasping against your tacky skin. One arm wraps around your midsection, heavy and secure, anchoring you.
"Easy," he murmurs against the top of your head. "I've got you, love."
His free hand trails down your stomach, and your muscles jump and twitch beneath his rough palm. He catalogues every reaction. The hitch in your breathing, the way your hips tilt up to meet him, the small, desperate noise you make when his fingers dip below your navel. The same way he catalogues threat patterns and exit routes.
This is a mission. He is completing the objective. He is taking care of his wounded soldier.
He keeps telling himself that as he peels your underwear down your thighs and off, tossing them aside. As he runs his hand up the inside of your thigh and feels you shake. As he finally cups you and discovers just how wet and swollen you are, dripping on his fingers, he has to close his eyes and clench his jaw against the visceral punch of arousal that knocks through him.
This is the job. You gave the order. See it through.
He works you with his fingers first, because he needs to know what you can take. Two thick fingers pressing into you slowly, carefully, and the sounds you make guts him.
"That's it." His voice is lower now, rougher. "There you go, sweetheart."
He doesn't call his soldiers sweetheart. He has never, in twenty-odd years of service, called anyone under his command sweetheart. The word falls out of him like a loose round, and he can't take it back.
Your sopping hole clenches around his fingers and his cock, already hard and straining against the front of his trousers, jerks so violently he must bite back a groan. He curls his fingers inside you, finds the swollen spot that makes your spine arch and your breath stutter, and works it with a patient, devastating precision.
You cum and gush on his fingers with a broken cry, your body locking up in his arms, and the aftershocks roll through you in long, shuddering waves that he holds you through without a word.
It's still not enough. He knows it won't be for a while longer.
Price reaches for the condom on the nightstand—Gaz found them in Price's bathroom cabinet, a half-empty box, almost expired, shoved behind the toiletries like an afterthought—and tears the foil with his teeth while you keen and squirm against him, already spiralling back up.
He undoes his trousers and pushes them down just enough to free himself, because keeping them on feels like maintaining some essential boundary, some last scrap of separation between Captain Price doing what needs to be done and John wanting what he shouldn't want.
Rolling the condom on is a particular exercise in self-control. His cock is thick, flushed dark when his foreskin slides back, weeping pre at the tip, and every brush of his own fingers against the oversensitive skin makes his abs clench.
He lifts you with ease, one hand on your hip, the other gripping himself, and positions you above his lap.
"Sergeant," he grunts through gritted teeth, "look at me."
Your head lolls back against his shoulder, eyes half-open, and you meet his gaze as best you can. He searches for something in your expression—recognition, maybe awareness, you—and finds enough of it to quiet the loudest of the voices screaming in his head.
"If it's too much, y’tell me. That's a bloody order."
You nod hazily. He doesn't know if you actually processed the words, but he needed to say them. Needed that on the record, if only between himself and God.
He lowers you onto him slowly.
The sound that comes out of him is not one he's ever made before.
You're scorching hot and soaked. Your body takes him inch by inch, clenching and fluttering around him as gravity and his guiding hand ease you down, and by the time you're fully seated in his lap, he's seeing stars and his fingers have left dents in the flesh of your hip.
"Fuck," he breathes, and the word is ragged at the edges, torn from somewhere deeper than his chest.
You moan shamelessly, and the relief in the sound nearly undoes him. Like something that's been wound unbearably tight has finally been given slack. Your body relaxes against his, tension draining from your muscles for the first time in hours, and the change is so visible, so immediate, that it almost justifies this.
Almost.
He starts to move. Rolling his hips up into you, slow and deep, both hands gripping your waist to control the pace. He keeps it measured; long and deliberate strokes that drag against your inner walls and make you whimper with each one, because if he lets himself go, if he fucks you the way his body is begging him to, he'll lose himself entirely.
And he hates—Christ, he hates—how fucking good you feel.
He hates the way you fit around him like you were made for it, and the way your head falls back against his shoulder, how your lips part and you breathe his name—not his rank, not Captain, but John—and the sound of it rushes through him hot and electric and wrong. Hates the wet, obscene sound of your body taking him repeatedly; that his hips are moving faster now, snapping up into you with a force that makes the headboard knock against the wall.
Hates that he doesn't want to stop.
Your eyes squeeze shut, your head tips back as you cry out. "John—John—oh god—"
His arm tightens around your ribs, crushing you back against his chest, and his mouth finds the curve of your shoulder—not kissing, just pressing there, teeth grazing skin, breathing you in. His other hand slides down between your thighs and rubs tight circles on your clit in counterpoint to each thrust, and you come apart so violently in his arms that he has to hold you through it with every ounce of strength he has.
You clench around him like a vice and he follows you over the edge with a bitten-off groan, his hips stuttering, his cock pulsing deep inside you as the orgasm tears through him with a ferocity that whites out his vision.
For a few suspended seconds, there's nothing left. No rank, no mission, no guilt. Just the pounding of his heart and the aftershocks rippling through both your bodies and the impossible, terrible warmth of you around him.
Then reality seeps back in, cold and unforgiving, and Captain John Price opens his eyes and begins the long process of hating himself for every second of the last twenty minutes.
He pulls out carefully, disposes of the condom, and fixes his trousers. When he leans you back against the pillows, your eyes are already glazing over again, your body winding up for more, and the sight of it makes something weary and furious crack behind his chest cavity
He cups your jaw, tilting your face up. "Stay with me, Sergeant. Stay with me."
You whimper, and your hips shift restlessly against the sheets.
Price stands and walks to the door on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.
"Garrick. You're up."
Gaz and Soap take you in turns after that, and it's different this time.
Where the first round was clinical in its own way—Gaz with his careful guilt, Soap with his missionary zeal, Price bearing the weight of command—this his round is rawer.
The boundaries have been breached, and the gentlemen's agreement hangs over the room like a ceasefire that everyone knows is temporary.
Gaz is gentler than Price was. He lays you on your back and settles between your thighs with a tenderness that borders on devotion, pressing his forehead against yours as he pushes inside you.
He goes slow and gentle, and whispers things against your temple that no one else can hear, private things meant only for the space between your mouth and his.
"I've got you," he murmurs repeatedly. "I've got you, Babygirl, I'm right here. I will be here."
He comes inside the condom with a shudder and your name bitten into the skin of your shoulder, and when he pulls out and rolls onto his back beside you, he stares at the ceiling for a long time without blinking, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.
Soap goes after. He's not gentle—can't be, doesn't know how to be, not with the way you claw at his back and wrap your legs around his waist and beg him harder, please, harder—but he's present.
He hooks your knee over his broad shoulders and fucks you deep, watching your face with a focused intensity that's almost clinical in its own right, cataloguing every reaction, every gasp, adjusting angle and depth and rhythm like he's zeroing a scope.
"Tha's it, sweetheart, take it—fuck, yer so—fuck—"
The condoms run out after Soap's first round.
Gaz discovers this when he reaches for the box on the nightstand and finds it empty, and the look on his face—the quiet oh, shit—would be funny in any other context.
"Cap'n," he calls, voice strained. "We've got a problem."
Price, who has been standing in the hallway staring at nothing, appears in the doorway. Gaz holds up the empty box. Price closes his eyes.
"Then pull out," the captain says flatly. "That's an order."
It should be simple, and it’s anything but.
Gaz tries. He genuinely, sincerely tries, but you're clenching around him so tightly and making those sounds, those desperate and wrecked, grateful sounds, and when your orgasm hits and your walls contract around his cock in rhythmic, milking pulses, his hips stutter and he buries himself to the hilt and spills inside you with a choked groan before his brain even registers what his body has done.
"Shit—shit, I'm sorry, I—fuck—"
He pulls out too late, watches his cum leak from you onto the sheets, and drops his head against your sternum with a devastated exhale.
Soap doesn't even pretend he's going to manage it.
"'M not gonna be able to pull out," he announces with a frankness that makes Gaz want to strangle him. "Jus' bein' honest, Cap."
"You'll pull out or I'll pull you out myself, MacTavish."
And yet Soap does not, in fact, pull out in time.
Price has to physically haul him back by the shoulder, and even then, Soap's cock jerks and pulses as it slips free, painting your inner thighs and lower belly with hot, thick ropes of cum while the Scotsman lets out a string of Gaelic curses that would make his mother disown him.
The room smells like multiple people fucking and sweating and something medicinal—the toxin, working its way out of your pores at last—and you're finally, finally, starting to slow down.
The desperate edge has dulled. Your whimpers are quieter now, tired rather than urgent, and your body has stopped arching off the bed every few minutes.
You're still reaching, though. Still searching for contact, for warmth, for a body against yours.
Ghost enters the room without being asked.
He's stripped down to his black t-shirt and trousers. The balaclava is still on, but his gloves are off, and the sight of his bare, scarred hands is somehow more intimate than anything else that's happened in this room tonight.
He doesn't look at the other men or acknowledge the state of the sheets or the smell or the heavy, post-coital guilt saturating the air.
He simply moves to the bed, sits down, and gathers you against his chest with a practised efficiency that suggests he's been rehearsing this moment in his head for the last two hours.
You go willingly. Boneless, exhausted, trembling with the last dregs of the toxin and the cumulative aftermath of more orgasms than your body was designed to handle in one night. Your face presses into the crook of his neck, your fingers curl loosely in the front of his shirt, and you let out a breath that sounds like surrender.
Ghost pulls the duvet up over both of you. One arm settles around your back securely. His other hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, fingers curling into your hair, and he holds you against him like he's shielding you from blast radius.
"Go to sleep," he says quietly. An order and a request and a plea all compressed into three words.
You make a small, incoherent sound against his throat.
"I know." His hand moves over your hair, slowly and gentle. "Sleep."
Price watches from the doorway for a moment. Then he pulls the door halfway closed and leaves the Lieutenant to his vigil.
In the kitchen, the captain pours himself another whisky—three fingers this time—and drinks it standing up, staring at the drawn curtains. Gaz is in the shower. Soap is sprawled on the sofa in the living room, one arm over his eyes, dead to the world.
Price's phone buzzes. Laswell.
How is she?
He stares at the screen for a long time. Types and deletes three different responses before finally settling on one.
Handled. Debrief in the morning.
He sets the phone face-down on the counter and finishes his drink.
Hours later, you wake up slowly, like surfacing from deep water.
The first thing you register is warmth. A wall of it, solid and breathing, pressed against your back. An arm draped over your waist, heavy with sleep. Fingers loosely tangled in yours against your sternum.
The second thing you register is that you are naked, sore in places you don't want to think about, and your mouth tastes like the inside of a boot.
The third thing is the balaclava.
You can feel it, the knitted fabric against the back of your neck, and the slow, even exhale of breath warming your skin through the cloth. The chest behind you rises and falls in the deep, steady rhythm of genuine sleep, which means the Lieutenant trusts this room enough to have let himself go under.
Which means something, though you're too foggy to figure out what.
You shift slightly, testing your body. Everything aches. Your thighs, your hips, your abs, your jaw for some reason, and there's a deep, bone-level exhaustion settled into your muscles that reminds you of the tail end of a bad flu.
The cramps are gone, though. The tingling, the feverish heat, the desperate, clawing need—all of it has receded, leaving behind a hollow, wrung-out emptiness.
And memory. Fragments of it. Arriving in pieces like delayed radio transmissions.
Kyle's hands shaking as he touched you. I'm only doin' this for you, babygirl. Johnny's mouth on you, hot and relentless. The sound he made against your thighs.
The shower. The water. Voices.
John.
Your eyes open wide and your body goes rigid, and the arm around your waist tightens reflexively. Ghost pulling you closer in his sleep, an unconscious response to a perceived threat, even though the threat is just you waking up and remembering.
You lie very still.
The flat is quiet. Early morning light edges around the curtains, pale and grey, and somewhere in the distance, you can hear the muffled sounds of the base waking up—vehicles, a distant shout, the rhythmic thud of boots on tarmac.
You don't move, don't speak. You stare at the wall and breathe and try to organise the wreckage in your head into something you can process.
Behind you, Ghost's breathing changes. Shifts from deep and even to something shallower, more aware. His arm tenses around you, a brief contraction of muscle, there and gone, and you know the exact moment he wakes up, because his entire body goes perfectly, absolutely still.
Neither of you says a word.
His hand is still tangled with yours against your bare chest. His thumb rests against your knuckle. But he doesn't pull away.
The silence stretches. Not uncomfortable, exactly. Heavy. Full of things that need to be said and won't be. Not now, certainly not yet, and maybe not ever. And there is a fragile, terrified understanding that what happened in this room changed the molecular structure of something that can never be unchanged.
Finally, after what feels like an hour but is probably two minutes, Ghost speaks.
"How do you feel?"
You consider the question. Really consider it, not the reflexive I'm fine that sits on your tongue out of habit.
"Like shit," you answer honestly. Your voice is wrecked, raspy, and it hurts to talk.
Then, so quietly you almost miss it, he answers, "Yeah."
His thumb moves once. A single, slow stroke across your knuckle.
Then he lets go of your hand, carefully disentangles himself from around you, and gets up without another word. You hear his boots being pulled back on. The soft click of the door.
You lie in the bed that smells like all four of them and none of yourself, and you stare at the wall, and you breathe.
﹙ ¹⁸⁺ ﹚ ₊ ❜୧ A QUICKIE WITH YOUR HUSBAND SIMON.
you're sorting through what feels like the millionth tiny sock when simon comes up behind you, large hands settling on your hips. "kids are occupied," he murmurs against your neck, and you can hear the suggestion in his voice.
"si, i have to get this done," you protest weakly, but you're already leaning back into him. wash day waits for no one with three kids, and you're drowning in tiny clothes. "and they won't stay distracted for long."
"exactly why we should be quick about it." his hands slide around to your stomach, pulling you flush against him. you can feel he's already hard, and your resolve wavers. "been thinking about you all morning, luv. watching you bend over sortin’ laundry..."
"you're terrible," you breathe, but you're already turning in his arms. seven years of marriage and three kids later, and he still looks at you like he wants to devour you. "we have maybe ten minutes before someone needs something."
"can work with that." he's already lifting you onto the washing machine, hands pushing up his sweatshirt that you wore around the house. "fuck, no panties? you trying t’kill me?"
"it's wash day, baby," you remind him, wrapping your legs around his waist. "everything's in the dirty hamper." but your explanation dissolves into a moan as his fingers find you already wet.
"fuckin' convenient," he growls, working you open with practiced efficiency. there's no time for slow and sweet; not with three kids in the house. "always ready for me, aren't you, swee'eart?"
you bite your lip to keep quiet as he replaces his fingers with his cock, pushing in with one smooth thrust. "simon," you gasp, nails digging into his shoulders through his shirt. "fuck—w-we have to be quiet."
"then you'd better keep that pretty mouth o’yours shut," he says, setting a punishing pace immediately. the washing machine rocks with the force of it, and you have to brace yourself against the wall. "can't have the little ones hearing what daddy does to mummy."
the filthy words in his rough accent make you clench around him. he notices, of course he does, and smirks against your neck. "like that, do you? knowing i'm fuckin’ you while our babies play down the hall?"
before you can respond, there's a loud bang on the door. "mommy! mommy, open!" your five-year-old's voice cuts through your haze of pleasure. "need you!"
simon doesn't stop, if anything going harder. "mummy's busy, swee'eart," he calls out, voice impressively steady for someone currently railing you against major appliances. "go play with yer sister."
"but mommy!" another bang. "daisy took my doll!"
you try to answer but simon chooses that moment to hit that perfect spongy spot inside you, and all that comes out is a strangled sound. he covers your mouth with his hand, eyes dark with amusement and lust.
"mummy's folding clothes," he lies smoothly. "she'll be out in a minute, go tell daisy t'share."
"don't want to!" your daughter whines, and you can hear her stomping her little feet. "want mommy now!"
"ella." simon's voice drops into what you call his lieutenant voice — gentle but brooking no argument. "go play. we'll be out soon."
there's a moment of silence, then you hear her stomp away muttering about simon being unfair. the second she's gone, simon removes his hand from your mouth.
"such a good girl," he praises, but you're not sure if he means you or ella. "keeping quiet while i fuck you senseless. though i bet y’wanted to scream, didn't you?"
"simon, fuck, please," you gasp, feeling your orgasm building embarrassingly fast. the combination of his cock and the thrill of almost getting caught has you on edge. "i'm gonna-"
"i know, luv. she's fuckin’ squeezin’ me." his thumb finds your clit, rubbing tight circles. "c'mon then. cum all over my cock before another one starts bangin’ on the door."
as if on cue, you hear your two-year-old calling from somewhere in the house. "mama?"
the use of your married name plus the perfect pressure on your clit sends you over. you bite his shoulder to muffle your cry as you cum all over his cock, whole body shaking with the force of it. he follows right after, groaning low in your ear as he fills you.
"mama!" your toddler's voice is getting closer.
"shit," simon pants, pulling out and quickly fixing his clothes. he helps you down, steadying you when your legs wobble. "y’good?"
"just peachy," you breathe, smoothing down his sweatshirt. you can feel his cum starting to leak and clench your thighs together.
"though i'm going to need to shower before i finish this laundry."
Hello, may I request a one-shot of the Mandalorian x Reader who somehow gets frozen in Carbonite during a fight, then wakes up blind with the Carbonite sickness? I'm a sucker for that kind of hurt/comfort stuff :)
Listen, I lost my creative juices halfway through this, and didn’t get them back for quite a while… 😬 So I’m sorry that this has taken so long, or if it’s not really all that good, but I’m kind of happy to just throw it into the abyss and let you guys have it 😂😂
Thanks @deceiverofgodss for suffering through this with me, ily 💛
Pairing: Din Djarin x female reader
Word Count: 3.0k
Warnings: hurt/comfort 💛, carbonite sickness, temporary blindness, brief mention of canon-level violence, sweet loving soft amazing Din, the helmet comes off 👀, Grogu is heartbreakingly adorable, I think that’s it?
At first, all you could feel was cold. Biting and endless, you couldn’t decipher any other feeling than the all-consuming cold seeping from your bones.
Then there was a warmth… was it warm? It was certainly warmer than the hell you’d been in, that had to count for something. A firm grip held you close, cradling you into their chest as you laid sprawled against their lap on the ground. As the feeling in your body gradually came back – or maybe your brain was just starting to thaw out – you recognized the warmer surface that was pressed against you in so many places.
Beskar.
The next thing to hit you was the smell of leather and fire, a smell you were no stranger to. The smoke that rose off of weapons you handled in your day-to-day life, and the buttery smoothness of well-worn leather gloves that were smoothing over your cheeks, filling your nostrils with the familiar scent. Gloves you’d felt caress your skin countless times before.
It started quiet, the muffled sounds of the world around you. A deep voice was speaking, accompanied by soft footsteps making quiet clangs against the metal flooring beneath you. How many people were here? Where were you?
You felt your brows furrowing as you tried to focus on the sounds filtering through your ears, and you gave an experimental tilt of your head to see what kind of motion you could pull off. It was very slight, but it was movement. It was probably only noticeable to whoever was holding you if they were paying very close attention.
“Mesh’la? Can you hear me?” You made out, the voice above you laced with concern and panic.
Din.
You opened your eyes slowly to let whatever light beyond your eyelids filter in slowly, allowing your body to take the recovery process one step at a time.
But the light never came.
Maybe your eyes weren’t open?
“I told you she’d be alright, Djarin,” you heard in a thick accent from a few steps away. “She’s a fighter.” That gruff voice was Boba’s for sure, but you still had no way of confirming what you were hearing. Were your eyes just… adjusting?
“Make yourself useful and figure out how to get more light in here, she can’t see anything,” Fennec’s unmistakeable lilt snarked, and with an amused grunt fading away with matching footsteps, you knew she’d thrown her jab at Boba. Yes, more light. That’s all you needed, everything was going to be alright.
“Talk to me, how do you feel?” Din said above you, and you realized you hadn’t acknowledged him in your confusion. You made an effort to use your vocal cords, a few experimental groans coming out before you could manage any words.
“I feel… tired.” You heard a quiet, shaky laugh come out from under Din’s helmet, and it didn’t take much longer before you felt the familiar Beskar of his helmet on your forehead. You steadily lifted one of your arms to reach for him, your body still coming back to temperature, and he met you halfway. If your eyes weren’t already closed, they were now as you savored the feeling of his hand in yours, how irrationally warm it made you feel to have Din wrapped so tightly around you.
You heard Fett’s distant sound of triumph and a sputtering of electrical devices in the room around you. When Din slowly lifted his helmet, you attempted to open your eyes one more time.
“There she is,” Fennec sighed, and your stomach flipped. “How’s the light, is that a little bit better?” She asked gently.
You still couldn’t see anything.
“Mesh’la… what’s wrong?” Din’s voice was quiet, smooth. Like he was trying to keep himself calm in order to comfort you. “Hey, look at me, I’m right here.” Your heart jumped to your throat, your head beginning to spin when you thought about how impossible such a simple task sounded when all you could see was black.
“I… I can’t,” you whispered, unable to stop the quiver as you finished speaking, the panic starting to set in. You didn’t know where you were trying to go but your body went into overdrive, legs scrambling for some kind of leverage to sit yourself up. Before you could go far, Din’s hand squeezed yours a little tighter, the arm wrapped around you firm as he pulled you into a sitting position while keeping you curled up against his chest.
“You can’t what?” Din’s voice was too calm, it was unsettling. Usually knowing that he was able to keep his calm in a less-than-ideal situation would be comforting to you, encouraging you to do so yourself and realize that you were okay. But it had never been this bad before. He wasn’t going through what you were. It was easy for him to find his calm, he could still see.
“The bounty… what happened? What did he do to me?” You settled for, working yourself up as your brain reeled for an answer, an explanation, any morsel of a solution.
“Easy princess,” Boba said from across the room. “Take it one step at a time, comin’ outta Carbonite isn’t as easy as taking a clam from a Gungan.”
Carbonite… you could vaguely piece together a memory of fighting. Some slimy bounty you and Din had picked up as a side job on your way to Tatooine to visit with your friends in Mos Espa. What was supposed to be a standard grab-and-go mission had turned complicated fast.
“You held your own,” Din’s voice said above you, no doubt watching you try to remember. “He caught us by surprise and managed to kick you back into a carbonite freezer. There was no way you could’ve seen him coming.”
As he said it, the memories came back to you. Stalking around a dark warehouse beside your Mandalorian, lights scanning for any sign of movement. You’d heard a clang come from beside you, and before you could alert your partner that you were going to check it out, you’d been knocked against a metal container. You were able to process hissing sounds as your head stopped spinning, and as you shouted back out to Din, you watched him tearing to get to you before everything went cold.
“How… how long was I in there?” you tried quietly.
“A few hours at the most,” Fennec answered. “Mando reached out to us pretty quickly, and as Daimyo of Mos Espa, getting clearance wasn’t an issue. When we got there, Djarin was rooted to the spot next to you with a dead Trandoshan not too far off.”
“We thought it’d be best if we defrosted you here at the palace,” Boba chimed in. “Give you time to acclimate without rushing you outta there.” Then there was a familiar gurgle, small noises that went directly to your heart. “And give the little one a chance to run around.”
“But he’s been too worried about you to go anywhere,” Din reasoned softly. It was hard to tell if your eyes were still open, but you could feel the tears coming nonetheless at the thought of Grogu waiting patiently beside you.
“Can I..” You wanted to ask if you could see him, but that seemed like a redundant question. “Where is he?” You heard the hesitant thump of Boba’s boots against the metal floor as he approached you.
“Hold out your hands, mesh’la,” Din urged, releasing your hand while keeping you close. You did as he said, and before you could ask why, you felt a familiar weight being set in your arms.
There were little hands on your cheeks and Grogu’s familiar gurgle of attempted words that were usually matched with his little toothy grin… What little restraint you had was shattered, and you felt the tears welling up in your eyes, and start to roll down your cheeks where they collided with your foundling’s fingers. Din pulled you closer as you cried, and you curled into him with Grogu in tow.
“Why can’t I see, Din?” you whispered, and you heard how broken your voice sounded. It at least matched the way you felt; broken.
“Carbonite takes its toll,” Boba started, and you felt Din’s body make a small, quick movement. You could only guess that he’d snapped his head up at the daimyo’s dramatic choice of words. “I just mean that there are usually side effects… but I’ve seen people come outta carbonite after weeks and turn out just fine.”
“So… how long will it take me to get my vision back?” you choked, trying to put a stop to the stream of emotions that continued falling as you listened around you. Din’s leather-clad hands rubbing soothing patterns into your back was definitely helping on that front. “If I get it back.”
“Don’t say that,” your Mandalorian’s firm voice countered. “You weren’t in there long. Your body will recover.”
“He’s right,” Fennec piped up. Not being able to see where your party stood in the room was proving to be a strange sensation, figuring out where the speaker was in the room proving to be its own mental sport. “Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell when it will wear off. Carbonite affects everyone differently, so we could be waiting a few hours, a few days, a few weeks... It depends on how your body reacts.”
There was a heavy silence in the room as Fennec’s words settled, forcing you to come to terms with the reality of the situation, and how little you could plan around it.
Din, surprisingly, was the first to break the silence.
“I’ll be here by your side each step of the way,” he started, his serious tone reassuring, backing up the weight of his promise.
Unsurprisingly, Din kept his word.
In the days that followed, Din was with you every moment possible. He was there to help you up in the mornings, tender touches and slow movements in the private quarters your clan of three took up in the palace. His hands rarely left you as he helped you maneuver around the space, and had endless amounts of patience as you worked together to get through the day.
Grogu definitely took a little bit to adjust. He was used to you picking him up and smothering him in affection too many times throughout the day to count. Now you often felt him at your feet, making soft sounds as he asked for you to lift him up. But when he started to understand that you couldn’t see him, his response broke your heart.
Each morning Din would put Grogu in your arms, and without fail, those little hands would find your cheeks right before you would feel a strange sensation course through your body… He was trying to use his powers to heal you, much like you had seen him do with Din in the past. You wouldn’t let him do it for so long that he would tire himself out, but the two of you entertained his efforts – at the very least to make him feel better, but also to see if it would even work.
In staying by your side, Din took to showering with you, too. Trying to convince him you could handle it was followed immediately by fumbling with the soaps until they clattered to the floor, and Din was knocking on the fresher door in moments. It was kind of amusing, at first, when he would step in behind you and you could hear the clang of the water against his helmet.
Amidst the confusion and the disorientation of your lack of sight, the silver lining had been the day Din fully realized how much he could get away with when you couldn’t see him. Your entire relationship you kept your eyes shut tight – or left the room altogether – when Din removed his helmet, honoring his creed. But now he could go without it whenever he so chose… as long as it was in the confines of your room.
Waking up to his soft kisses had been a warm welcome, one that was met with his enthusiastic affection scattered across your face. “We should do this more often,” he sighed, making you laugh against him as he kissed your cheek, the scratch of his facial fair tickling your skin.
You grew accustomed to roaming your hands around his body so you could navigate to his soft curls, combing through his hair and massaging his scalp with your nails. You mapped the planes of his face with your lips, traced his pouted ones with your fingertips… and by the Maker, you were basking in the sound of his voice without the vocoder filtering it through his helmet. You could hear his smile when he spoke, could hear even the smallest huff of amusement his helmet usually kept from being audible, and his comforting tone wrapped you in a warmth you wanted to stay in forever.
…
“Mesh’la,” you heard as you slowly came into consciousness. You gave Din a sleepy smile as he peppered kisses over your cheeks, the scratch of his mustache tickling your skin. “Someone’s here to see you early this morning,” he whispered, and you felt his side of the bed shift as he sat up. You kept your eyes closed through the whole process, like you did every morning, wanting to soak up the softness of your little family for just a little bit longer before facing the disappointment of not being able to see anything.
In the last week, there was… some improvement. You knew you should be grateful for any steps forward your condition was taking, even if they were slim, but after the first few days, it just became exhausting. You could make out the vague shapes of the figures around you, and you could tell the difference between light and dark, but that was about it. Din had been ecstatic when you reached out for him that first morning, his excitement growing each time you turned towards him as he leaned in to give you a kiss.
You just wanted to see again.
When Din’s weight returned to the bed – your eyes still closed – he brought with him a familiar bundle that was set directly on your stomach. Grogu didn’t wait for your hands to find him before he was crawling clumsily up your body, and you shared in Din's laughter as you each gave him a hand to help him to his destination.
“Well good morning to you too, little one,” you smiled, pleasantly surprised by your foundling’s newfound eagerness to get started with the day. “You must be hungry if you’re wanting to get this over with so quickly.” There was only a babble in response as he situated himself on your chest, and you could just imagine him reaching his little hands out to make it to your cheeks without losing his balance.
Din grunted as he shifted, this time getting up off of the bed, no doubt to go tend to make Grogu something to eat before it got past the point of no return. And yet, when his little hands finally reached you, there was no urgency. With your eyes still closed, you focused closely on the feeling that began spreading through your body, breathing deeply when the familiar feeling of weightlessness his powers brought you relaxed your muscles.
The soft clanking of dishes from the living area of your room in the palace brought you back to the present, which meant that it was time to start moving through your day, and giving Grogu a chance to rest after using his powers once again. You opened your eyes as you sat up, hoisting Grogu up with you and returning the little smile that spread across his cheeks…
His smile. You could see it.
You could see.
“Hi baby,” you whispered, your throat suddenly feeling very constricted as you took in the sight of your foundling. His big, dark eyes bore into you as his ears perked up at the attention he hadn’t seen from you in so long. He gurgled happily as he used his grip on your cheeks to encourage you to lean forward, pressing his little forehead against yours.
You heard Din’s broken voice say your name, speaking softly as if he was scared to break whatever trance he was in. Without thinking, you lifted your head from Grogu’s and turned to look in his direction, and for a moment you couldn’t believe what you were seeing.
Din stood frozen in place when he met your gaze, his warm brown eyes speaking a thousand words that would never pass his lips. His dark curls that you had felt so many times sat in a mess atop his head, matching the scruff and facial hair that decorated his golden skin. The prominent nose you had felt was more handsome than you could have ever imagined, the pouty pink lips you had traced time and time again as inviting as ever.
You had imagined this moment a thousand times, thought of every possible situation or turn of events that might ever lead to seeing your Mandalorian without his helmet. Your worst fear was that it would be an accident – like it was now – and that his expression turning into disappointment, anger, or something worse that would mean he wanted nothing more to do with you.
But the face looking back at you had nothing but anticipation and adoration written across his striking features.
“Mesh’la…” you whispered, trying the Mando’a endearment on your tongue. The corners of his lips began to turn up in a tentative smile, and the sight you had just gotten back started to blur with the water flooding your eyes. “Beautiful… Din, you’re beautiful,” you sobbed. The last thing you saw was Din rushing to your side, quick to wrap his arms around you and kiss the top of your head as you closed your eyes once more, letting the happy tears flow freely across your cheeks.
Thanks for reading!! If you’d like to be notified when I post a new fic, be sure to follow @writerlyhabits-library + turn on post notifications! 💛
summary: after helping the mandalorian with a favor, he brings you a gift as a thank you. little do both of you know that this gift sparks a connection that neither of you can deny, and thoughts that din never considered before you.
tags/warnings: dual pov, no use of y/n cuz ew, alcohol consumption, mentions of medicine/contraceptives, a very tiny mention of being chased/hunted down, hella chemistry, fluff, language, jealousy, sexual tension, yearning, dirty talk, heavy makeout, biting, fingering, clit play, cunnilingus, breast play, slight choking kink, piv unprotected sex, praise kink, breeding kink, cream pie, helmet off, dark room sensory focused.
author’s note: listen listen LISTEN... I know, it's been a hot minute 🥲 Life happened and all that jazz. Tbh this has been in my drafts for a while but I decided to finish it now that the movie is out so this is probably canon divergent at this point lol. But when I tell you I ran away writing this, bitch I raaaan. To everyone who wondered what happened to that bottle of liquor in s3, this is for you pookies🫵🏻🙂↕️
When you decided to make Nevarro your home, you expected it to be a rough place. A far off den of thieves, bounty hunters, and a sleazy connection to the old empire. Nonetheless, it was cheap so you convinced yourself you could put up with it. It wasn’t anything new to you. Plus, at the time, you really didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Thankfully, the reputation has drastically improved over the past few years. It’s not Naboo, but there’s a sort of gritty charm to it. Rebels became marshals. Bars became schools. Thieves became honest vendors. Hell, there’s even kaf shops here now.
You’re no stranger to drastic changes in this galaxy. You’ve beared witness to the rise and fall of an empire after all.
But receiving a bottle of wine at night from a notorious ex-bounty hunter is definitely a first for you.
“You’re… giving this to me,” you ask, dragging the question out.
The Mandalorian stands at your doorstep. Unreadable beneath hard shiny metal and illuminated only by the entry light of your home above your door. The chilly night air bites your cheeks but he stands unfazed.
“As a thank you,” he explains. “You were a big help to my kid and this was the only thing I had that seemed like something you’d enjoy.”
All you did was give his little green kid some medicine. It’s not like it was even your first interaction with the infamous hunter. He’s stopped by your apothecary a couple times. Passing by so swiftly you hardly even knew he was there if it wasn’t for the lingering stares from other customers. If you recall correctly, he only ever picks up supplies to replenish a med pack or bacta spray for wounds.
Until you suddenly found him at your doorstep the other night with his adorable little green baby in his arms. The poor little guy was running a fever, coughing up a storm, and had even refused food for over a day. Any parent would be frantic. And so you didn’t even think twice to let them inside.
Luckily your small shop is attached below your home, so you were quick to find the right tinctures for his illness. The Mandalorian paced circles in your kitchen as you administered the medicine and blotted his kid’s little forehead with a cool damp cloth. It took some time and a lot of reassurance to a very nervous father, but after a few hours the fever broke.
You sent them home with some herbal tinctures and even some homemade hard medicinal candies for stubborn coughs and that was it. Hardly any words were exchanged between you that night that didn’t pertain to the child. Only a heartfelt thank you, goodnight, and a promise to pay you back somehow. You assured him that it really wasn’t necessary, that you were glad to help.
You’ve admittedly always been curious about the man. With his stoic demeanor and a reputation that preceded him like lightening preceded thunder. He’s somewhat of a local legend, menace, and hero all wrapped up in one. And now he’s at your door. With booze. Definitely a man of his word, this guy.
“You’re giving this,” you repeat with astonishment. “This whole bottle, to me?”
“Yes,” he answers again. “Is it a special one or something?”
“This is Andoan wine,” you emphasize, holding out the clear glass bottle. “You can only find these on Coruscant now. Very delicious, very rare, very expensive.”
“Is it,” he asks nonchalantly. “I’ve never tried it before. But I hope you enjoy it.”
“You really don’t have to,” you tell him.
“I insist. I didn’t know the first thing to do so I appreciate your help.”
You chuckle. With your limited interactions, you’re starting to see that he’s short and to the point with his words. Almost like he’s not entirely used to speaking with people.
“I…” You nearly argue it again but decide against it. He really didn’t have to give you such a lavish gift for something any good person would do in a situation like that. It was only natural. But at this point, refusing him might come off as rude so…
“Thank you very much.”
The Mandalorian acknowledges your gratitude with a tilt of his helmet, then turns on his heels to leave without another word. And for some reason, you linger at the door. You watch him go down one step, then another, then-
“H-hey, Mando?”
Your sudden call stops him in his tracks on the stair case and he turns to look back over his shoulder. The dim light gleaming over his steel.
“Yes?”
“I…. w-well…”
You’re stammering. Just come out and say it.
“If you’ve never tried it… would you like to share it with me?”
He stands there silently looking at you and the awkwardness crawls your skin.
“I’m not busy at the moment and it’s not really in my culture to drink alone.”
Culture your ass. You just want to drink with him. It’s unclear why in particular but… you’re curious about him. Other than the company of his kid, he seems alone. You wonder if he prefers it that way or if it’s for another reason entirely. Either way, the offer was worth a shot.
There’s more silence and the only noise in the air comes from the gentle chirp of some lava crickets and the breeze brushing the trees in the street. And it’s in that moment that regret starts to burn in your stomach
He’s gonna say no. A pause like that doesn’t necessarily mean yes. But it would be rude not to offer, right? A bottle this nice doesn’t come by these parts and it’d be a shame to drink it alone. It’s reasonable to offer the gesture. After all, he went out of his way to come here from across town. It’s the least you can do to show your appreciation in return.
“Alright.”
The word that falls out of him so effortlessly hits you like a punch to the chest. Are you nervous? Absolutely. But how many people can say they shared a drink with the Mandalorian?
A few minutes later, you find yourself standing on your tip toes, grabbing a couple earthenware ceramic cups in your kitchenette cabinet while Mando stands in your living room. His helmet follows the various potted plants, momentos and knick knacks from your travels littered around your home. Even tracing his gloved fingers over some of them.
“You have a nice home,” he says. “I didn’t notice before. Very lived in.”
“Lots of junk,” you joke. “You can say it Mando, I won’t mind.”
“My place is still new. Doesn’t feel like a home just yet.”
“That’ll change over time,” you assure him. “After a while, your home becomes a collection of memories.”
His attention gets drawn to a particular item on your wall. It’s an old worn down canvas satchel bag that hangs on the wall. At one point it was a life line. Now it serves as a reminder that no matter how hard life gets, showing a little kindness can go a long way for someone.
“What’s this memory?”
“That? That memory is what got me here.” You smile to yourself as you wipe down the cups with a clean kitchen rag.
“A few years ago, I was on Pantora with just some spare change and the clothes on my back. I was desperate to leave so I ended up hitching a ride on a freight ship. I worked on the ship in exchange for a ride to Corellia. Their language was difficult to learn and I had a rough time getting things done because for some reason everything was written in the native language and not aurebesh. On a stop to Tattooine, I accidentally labeled a pallet of coaxium as a pallet of scrap metal. That “scrap” was sold to some Jawas and by the time everyone realized my mistake we were already halfway to the next planet.”
“Was that before you came the Nevarro?”
“That was the reason I came to Nevarro,” you clarify. “It was their next stop so they dropped me here.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, ouch,” you laugh. “Anyway, I guess one of the workers felt sorry for me and left me that satchel with a couple credits and some ration bars inside. Buuut my mistake turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Nevarro turned itself around. I have my own little business. I’m even able to save a little bit of money now. For the time being, things are comfortable. I’ve hopped around the system a lot as you can see. But… this is a place I can always come back to.”
“Something reliable,” he adds.
“Exactly,” you say softly, smiling at the sentiment.
You look up at him. And you didn’t notice as you were cleaning those cups that he’s now completely facing towards you. His visor is trained on you. And it’s then that you realize how small your home really is. Because Mando is broad.
His crossed arms accentuate his wide shoulders. His chest plate follows the lines of his trim torso. Even those plates of beskar armor can barely hide the bulk of his biceps. Your eyes briefly, briefly take a tour at his waist line before you realize how incredibly rude you’re being.
He’s a guest. And a customer. Don’t. Check. Him. Out.
Heat starts to rise in your cheeks. Focusing back on the cups, you round the kitchen counter and walk over to him.
“I’m sorry. All this talking suddenly got deeper and I feel like I haven’t really introduced myself. We’ve only ever passed by each other before,” you chuckle, shaking away the nerves.
In hindsight you should’ve just introduced yourself the other night, but truthfully you were in care-taker-mode and it didn’t occur to you at the time. Plus you didn’t think you’d have an encounter with the man again other than seeing him briefly in your shop every so often. But he seems like a nice enough person with the limited knowledge you do have with him. And after tonight you’re bound to cross paths again. So you happily extend your hand out and give him his cup along with your full name.
There’s a couple beats of silence and you’re starting to see that’s his default. But it doesn’t stop you from second guessing your words as if you’re crossing an unknown boundary. There’s a slight tilt downward with his helmet and he responds with a regretful “I’m sorry, but-“
“You don’t have to tell me your name,” you immediately add. “I know there’s… principles you must have. I just wanted you to know me. That’s all.”
Another beat passes before he finally reaches out to take the cup in his hand. He repeats your name and the way it comes out of his voice holds a whole new flavor. Soft and curious even through the warble of his vocoder. It’s almost like he’s seeing how it tastes.
You like it. You like it a lot.
“It’s nice to meet you.” The voice wears the vocoder like a veil but you still catch a hint of a smile by his relaxed tone. No real logical way to know for certain, just a gut feeling.
“Likewise,” you smile back.
“So,” he exhales. “You want to know how two Mandalorians drink?”
“Sure. Sounds educational,” you joke.
With a tilt of his helmet, Mando steps further into the living room area and you follow behind, cup and bottle in hand. Walking over to the couch, his gloved hand reaches for the small round pillow resting there. His smokey grey cape flows over his shoulder and for a moment you’re mesmerized by the movement. As he turns on his heel, his fingers release the pillow. Letting it fall to the thin rug with a muted poof.
“Right here.” Mando gestures to the floor and you waltz over to take a seat on the cushion, crossing your legs. It doesn’t escape your notice how he doesn’t grab the only pillow for himself. Opting for your comfort over his own.
He takes a minute to look around the room. Probably checking for anything reflective. Then with a swish of his cape to the side, Mando settles in the floor behind you. When his back presses against yours, you expect a wall of cold hard metal beneath the cape. But instead there’s warmth. Strong and firm, but still warm and giving.
“It’s customary to sit on the floor when drinking with a war band. Usually outside around a fire. When it’s just two, it’s back to back.”
“Aaah,” you drawl. “Very practical. I like it.”
The top of the bottle comes off with a pop and the rich scent caresses your nose like a hug. After pouring about two fingers worth into Mando’s cup you pour one for yourself and settle in.
“Are we drinking to anything tonight ,” you ask him.
“Not sure. How about…,” he pauses for a moment before deciding. “To that Pantoran who gave you the satchel.”
That makes you laugh out loud. But you can’t help but feel a little pleased at that. If it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t be on Nevarro, wouldn’t have a home. And you definitely wouldn’t be drinking with Mando tonight. For that you’re especially grateful.
“You know what, yeah,” you chuckle. “To the Pantoran.”
Mando extends his arm back to reach your cups and you meet him halfway. Letting them touch with a soft clack.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
There’s an unclicking sound and you sense that he’s probably tilting his helmet back to drink. You ignore the small tinge of disappointment that he didn’t take it completely off. But it’s understandable. He doesn’t know you well. Even drinking like this with an outsider is probably a big deal for people of his creed. His back presses a little further against yours as he takes his first sip and you take yours.
The wine is rich and dry, and a bit smokey. But the underlying taste of tangy fruit blends well with the flavor. Going by the color, it has to have been bottled for a decades. The alcohol runs warmly down your throat and settles like smoldering ember in your stomach. It’s like no other alcohol you’ve ever tried before. Not even close.
“Hoooh,” he hisses after that sharp bite of alcohol.
“Yeah,” you agree knowingly. Already sensing that this bottle is getting finished tonight.
The conversations flow pretty easily after the first drink. He tells you about how his boy came into his life and how he suddenly found himself being his father. You tell him that you can only dream of having a parent like him because you never got to know yours. You half expected he would cut the interaction short and only accept one drink. But when you offer a refill, he gladly accepted which warmed you from the inside.
Admittedly you ask a few curious questions about his creed and he indulges you a bit. And he asks about how you got into medicine making. But for the most part you both stick to easier topics like current events on Nevarro, work, and food. Eventually two drinks turn into three and somehow you’ve both dipped into topics like past relationships. Which is dangerous territory after drink number three.
“It was baaad, Mando. I’m telling you. I mean, really! Who gives two shits who makes more money than who? Or am I in the wrong here?”
“Nah, definitely not,” he replies. His speech now more relaxed but a little raspy from the alcohol. “Honestly, he sounds like a little bitch if that was his main concern.”
“Yeah! Like, what is it with these men and needing to feel superior in such bullshit, inconsequential ways?”
“You seem strong willed. Weak men are intimidated by that.”
“Yeah well, then every man I’ve met in this galaxy was weak,” you groan. “I mean, c’mon. Am I that intimidating? Is it the yapping? It’s probably the yapping.”
“I think someone who’d be deterred by something that trivial doesn’t sound worth a damn anyway.”
With that, you let out a deep sigh and slump against the man behind your back.
“Eh, you’re probably right,” you exhale. You toss back the last little sip in your ceramic cup, savoring the flavor.
“You know what, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll just be that shop girl around the corner who throws herself into her work, makes her little remedies, and stays happily independent. I think I can live with that.”
A pause streches between you.
“You don’t sound too convincing, Shop Girl,” he teases.
“Shit,” you tsk.
You both wheeze with laughter, your bodies rumbling against one another and it’s so… relaxing. He’s surprisingly easy to talk to. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t say much. Or that what little he does say is said with a sincerity you’re not used to. Or you’re drunk. It could very well be that.
But in a galaxy full of deceit and unknown dangers, it’s refreshing to talk with someone as honest as him. He’s authentic, unapologetically so.
“Hey so… can I ask you something?”
“You’ve been asking things this whole time,” he teases.
“I know, but… it’s technically a helmet question. And you can tell me to fuck off if it’s too much.”
Mando hums and the rumble reverberates through your body, nesting warmly in your chest. He’s settled comfortably against you and it makes you feel close enough to ask what you want to ask. After thinking it over he gives you permission.
“Can’t wait to hear this,” he sighs with a little amusement.
You smile. To your surprise, he actually has a good sense of humor. A dry, blunt one . But humor nonetheless. You run a finger over the rim of your cup, finding a little more courage.
“Mando… Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
It’s a simple enough question, right? It’s within the ballpark of the topics you’ve been discussing. And you’re both adults. It’s not like it’s inappropriate…Right?
Oh god, you really are drunk…
Regret rises with each passing second and you wonder why you even brought it up. It’s probably some kind of insult to his creed to ask something like that.
“Too much,” you broach gently.
“No,” he says softly. “You’re not exactly the first person to ask that. Doubt you’ll be the last.”
He pauses for a moment to find the right words. Then with a heavy exhale he gives you an answer to your insanely intrusive question.
“I was pretty young when I took the creed,” he states. “Ten, twelve maybe? Too young to be interested in those kinds of things. Never looked back since. To be completely honest, it’s not even something I really think about in adulthood. Never understood the hype.”
“Sooo, I’ll take that as a no.”
“No,” he breathes. “Never kissed anyone.”
Never kissed anyone? Never felt a person’s soft lips against his own or graze his skin? Does that mean he hasn’t gotten to experience more than kissing? Licking? Biting? Or…
Do not finish that thought…
“Huh… Well, that’s a shame,” you say without thinking, quickly adding “-but at the same time, I completely understand it too! I mean, it shows a lot of self discipline, you know? To resist that kind of… temptation. Most people don’t have any reason to be disciplined enough to stay chaste. I can admire tha-"
“I said I’ve never kissed anyone, I didn’t say I never fucked.”
Thank… the Maker… you’re not face to face. Because the way your eyes bulged just now would’ve been downright embarrassing had it been caught. He didn’t just say sex or even screwing. The Mandalorian fucks. The alcohol in your blood seems to conjure a brief glimpse of what that might look like before you find enough coherence to shew it away.
“…oh,” you breathe out, effectively stopping your rambling. “I-I guess I just assumed…”
A deep exhale blows out of his nose. He hums, seemingly entertained by the foot you’ve put in your mouth. But also making the air light between you.
“Well, you assumed wrong.”
The humor in his voice settles your nerves a bit. Thankfully there isn’t an awkward air at the sudden change to such a topic despite hardly knowing each other. And oddly enough, it feels easy to talk about it for that very reason.
“You’re rather chatty when you drink, Mandalorian. I feel like I’m learning all sorts of things about you tonight.”
“You’re right,” he breathes. “I spoke without thinking, I apologize.”
“No, It’s fine. I don’t mind at all. It’s a relief to know there’s a man under all that armor and not solid metal.”
He hums again and the noise stirs something in your chest.
“Well, even so… It’s late… Probably best if I stop drinking.”
You look into your empty cup. Then glance over to the bottle with barely a drop left inside. Something inside you wilts. There’s nothing to keep him here any longer…
“Yeah… Me too.”
You’re not sure if you wait for him to move first or if he’s waiting for you. But both of you remain still for nearly a whole minute. Silent and hesitant to end the night. As comfortable as it is, you feel Mando’s back lean away from yours and you miss the warmth. You turn on the floor to find him standing up as he adjusts his helmet clasp and places his empty cup on the table.
“You were right. It tasted better shared,” he admits. A satisfied smile curls your lips.
“If you learned anything about me tonight, Mando, it’s that I am always right when it comes to liquor.”
“I appreciate the hospitality.”
“I appreciate the company.”
You place a hand on the table as an anchor in an attempt to stand up and follow him to the door. But as you try to stand straight, the room spins and your knees buckle.
Nope. Not doing that.
You sit your ass right back down on that cushion before you make an even bigger fool of yourself. Quick to respond, Mando catches your free arm. Making sure you land back down safely.
“You ok,” he asks, concerned but with a hint of humor.
“Pfft. Yeah, I’m good. I think I’ll just stay down here for a minute,” you chuckle, running a hand through your hair and closing your eyes for a moment.
For sure you’ll have a hangover tomorrow. Shit. You work tomorrow. There’s a couple things you’re running low on, too. You’ll have to request an order through the trading guild. That’ll cost credits. Maybe if you get that Chiss man again you can manage a trade and he can throw in those dried flower buds for that tea that keeps getting sold out.
You know you’re already a bit dizzy. But behind closed eyes you feel like your head is swaying. Or rather… that it’s being moved. Something warm and firm holds your jaw up and when your eyes flutter open again you’re met face to face with dark silver.
The Mandalorian stands barely a foot in front of you. Visor fixed down on your face. Maybe the wine has made your brain slow but it’s only when you follow the path from his shoulder and down his outstretched arm that you realize what’s holding your jaw… is his hand.
With a subtle pass of his thumb along your cheek you can feel warmth starting to pool in your face. Awareness pricks the hairs on the back of your neck when you realize your position. Sitting on your knees, face barely level to his waist as a wall of steel and muscle towers over you.
“Your cheeks get flushed when you drink,” he mutters.
When I drink. Suuuure.
“Now you know,” you mumble without thinking. It grants you a satisfied hum from his helmet and you feel it travel through your ears and under your skin.
“Now I know…,” he repeats.
There’s no movement, no words. But there’s something thick in the air. It’s heavy and enticing. It’d be so easy to get wrapped up in it with any sudden movement. You look up at him through half lidded eyes and you get a gut feeling that they’re meeting his. You’re not sure what his are giving away. But yours have to be hinting something you’ve been trying to hide all night.
With a sharp intake of air, Mando steps back and releases your face. Your head drops a little at the loss of support and it follows his direction as he walks towards the front door with quick, heavy steps. With a press of a button on the wall panel, the door panels slide open and just before he steps outside… he stops. Not looking back, just standing there at the edge of your home with his stand still resting on the doorway.
“Don’t invite me in again.”
And then he’s gone. The door panels shut swiftly, leaving you alone and more confused than when he showed up at your door.
…what?
•
Din wishes he could say that the first thing he thinks about when he got home that night was his sleeping kid safe in the crib. Or at the very least about how incredible that wine tasted. But after he undressed and collapsed down onto his bed half drunk, the only thought he couldn’t stop thinking about as he stared at the ceiling was…
Damn… it’s been a while.
For the past few years, Din’s life has flipped around a number of times. Between barely scraping by as a bounty hunter, saving an orphan kid from an imperial psychopath, losing said kid, then having him return and be by his side to reclaim the Mandalorian home-world, there’s not much time to indulge those kinds of needs. But just because Din found himself being a busy father later in life doesn’t make certain things dead.
No. Everything felt very much alive and kicking by the end of that bottle.
Behind closed eyes, his room feels like it swirls. After that wine, his body feels loose and relaxed. Something he rarely gets to experience these days. Images dance across his closed lids. Delicate, slender hands around a handmade cup. A pink flush on smooth skin. Plump tinted lips between his fingers, softly parted and begging to be touched. The intrusive impulse to dip a finger between those lips was so strong he could feel his hand move into the action before he could even think to do so.
All thanks to that one question. That simple, innocent question activated a deep part of his brain that lay dormant. And then he decided to shatter the care free atmosphere by with a crass remark about sex.
Never in his life has he regretted saying something so fast. You barely even know each other. Admittedly, Din isn’t exactly a refined person, far from it actually. But after his third glass, any semblance of manners flew right out the window. His mouth did the walking with little thinking involved.
Yet, you didn’t get uncomfortable. You handled the slip up with humor instead of getting offended or something just as bad. Using humor to make the air light again. It surprised him how easily you did it. How easy the conversation was all night, really. It’s not everyday he’s able to let his guard down with another person.
Once he was aware of that, he became aware of everything. How late the hour was, how drunk you both were, and how your bed was right behind where you both sat. Only separated by a simple room divider. Even when he tipped up his helmet, there was a heady herbal scent from you that kept swimming in his nose and it was just as intoxicating as the wine. He couldn’t trust himself to stay any longer. And now, in the safety of his own home, he finds himself preoccupied with a mountain of questions.
What kind of person are you? What’s your daily life like? What other places have you seen? What troubles you? You seem to be rooted here in Nevarro for the time being. But from what you’ve mentioned about your past, you have a kind of nomadic life. What happens if he… if the kid gets attached and you decide to move on to another planet? But then again, it’s not like he’s not one to talk though is he?
Loyalty. Solidarity. These are things that have been etched to his core since childhood. But giving those things to something that could be fleeting? That’s a risk he’s avoided for most of his life. Those kinds of wounds never heal.
But as much as he tries to distance himself, it’s not always in his control.
Three weeks go by and they couldn’t end soon enough. When he offered to work with Teva (or Blue as he usually calls him) on a case-by-case basis, he figured they’d be more involved than the bounty hunting trade. He’s spent up to a month off planet at times in order to capture a quarry so it’s not exactly new to him.
But that was when he had the Razor Crest. With a cot to rest in, a weapons locker, and supplies readily at hand. In that regard, the N-1 leaves much to be desired. Plus Din’s back isn’t what it used to be and long rides in that ship are killer. And to add insult to injury, this last case with Zeb was especially complicated to resolve. It left him and the kid completely drained.
After finally landing back in Nevarro with fresh credits, there is absolutely nothing Din wants more than to just go home, bathe, and sleep for at least a day. But he’s got a very hungry green mouth to feed and there’s no way Din is fixing up any dinner tonight.
Street food it is.
“Alright, we’re making this quick. In and out. I’ll get you as much food as you want and you can pick out one sweet. Not five. One. Got that?” Grogu tilts his head at Din curiously from where he follows behind on the cobblestone street and he’ll just take that as a yes.
Dozens of food stalls are gathered at the main square in town as he approaches. Adorned with all sorts of neon signs, string lights and colorful banners. It’s a busy atmosphere filled with people laughing, vendors calling out for customers to stop by, and sounds of clanking and sizzling as they cook.
Din gravitates towards the skewers stand. He knows Grogu is going to down ten of them by himself so he opts for something easy, filling, and cheap. He catches sight of those spicy chunks of fatty meat searing over lava coals and his mouth waters.
“Okay, which onesss-“
Din reaches down to pick up his son only to find the street bricks.
“-Sssshhhhit,” he hisses under his breath, glancing around. This fucking kid. He knows better than to run off.
The crowd is thick and it’s getting dark. He scans through the sea of people and vendors but doesn’t find that familiar pale green.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
With a tap of his helmet side panel he switches to the tracking beacon screen. After enough scares like these he’s learned to have a tracker sewn into his clothes at this point.
Blinking red arrows come into his view and he follows the path. Not caring whose shoulders he budges or what food he knocks out of someone’s grip to get through. The red arrows turn yellow. He’s getting close but there’s still no visual of the kid and he’s starting to panic. He pushes through, scanning side to side and calling out his name in an orchestra of noises without reply.
Yellow turns to green and he’s still out of sight. He’s tiny and easy to miss. Grogu could be anywhere, he could be in any one of these stalls. What if he’s taken? What if someone else is tracking him? He could be picked up by a total stranger and taken away again.
Just as that thought crosses his mind, there’s a small separation in the crowd. Big floppy ears come into view and he’s definitely been picked up. But it’s no stranger that holds him.
“And here comes dad~” A voice soft as silk rings inside his helmet.
Relief floods his body as well as caution when he taps his screen clear. Only him. Situations like this only happen to him. It could’ve been Karga. It could’ve been anybody. But it had to be you that found him.
It was barely two minutes. But within those two minutes Din’s head flooded with every worst case scenario possible. And here he is. Happily babbling in your arms like he didn’t just give his dad a fucking heart attack.
“I know, I know,” you assure him like you can already tell where his head’s at, trying to speak over all the noise. “Don’t be too hard on the little guy. I already gave him a bit of a lecture for running around at night.”
Din wants to. It’s honestly his first reaction. But a cooler head prevails and he decides against it after a second thought. He reminds himself (once again) that Grogu is still young and that getting angry would only make things worse. What matters is that he’s safe and that he managed to find you.
“At least he won’t have to hear it twice,” he exhales, pushing out the stress sitting in his lungs. “Sorry about him.”
“No, no sorry needed. He’s smarter than he lets on. At least he ran to someone he knew. I’m glad I was around.”
Din opens his mouth to speak but ends up falling short with his words. Now that some of the stress has left his body, his eyes take you in at a second glance. Unclouded by the adrenaline.
Your hair is tied up with a pin with a few loose pieces falling at the nape of your neck and around your face. With the heat persisting into the night, you decided to wear a thin strap tank top that hangs low on your chest. It exposes miles of smooth skin, from your shoulders all the way down the arms wrapped around his kid. A dusty blue apron wraps around your waist over some baggy cargo pants so you must’ve came here right after work. There’s a glow from all the neon lights that adorns you and he has to will his mouth to move before he gets caught staring.
“Here.” He extends his hands to you. “I can take him back. Thank you for catching him. C’mon, bud. Let her get back to shopping.”
“It’s no problem,” you assure him with a smile. Your hands hooks under Grogus tiny arms and start to pull him off your torso. “Back to dad you go.”
But the moment he’s barely lifted, he cries out in protest with a shrill whine. Refusing to leave your side. You pull him back in instantly and run a soothing hand on his back.
“Oh! Okay, okay. You can stay with me for a minute,” you giggle in a sugary voice to Grogu. Bouncing him on your hip.
You both exchange a look of surprise (as much as his visor can give off anyway). What kind of person are you that Grogu prefers your embrace over his own father? He doesn’t know whether to be jealous or impressed.
But it’s getting late, they need to eat and get home and you probably need to get back to your own errands. Din’s hands extends again to take Grogu but you shake your head with a little smile. Letting him know it’s not an inconvenience to you.
“Here, wanna help me pick out some sweets?”
Grogu coos at your request, toying with the glittering silver chain pendant on your neck. You rest his kid on your hip effortlessly and the motion of it pinches something deep in Din’s chest. Turning to the assorted trays of sugared fruits on skewers, you list the various kinds for Grogu to pick out. Talking back with him like you can actually understand his little babbles. You answer him with “ooh, that’s a good choice” and “these are my favorites”.
Din just stands aside, watching the way you both interact and it’s admittedly a bit pleasing to see how natural you are with him. Most people think he’s a pet at first glance. Karga treats him like a newborn. Talking gibberish and doting on him despite him handling a 50 year old. You, on the other hand, just treat him like a regular kid. And it’s refreshing to see.
His son’s head spins back at his father with the biggest set of sparkling inky eyes and Din can see the pleading question in them. He tilts his helmet at him and reminds him “one”. Those large ears deflate a little and you giggle at the interaction. Din offers to pay for your skewer along with Grogu’s as another thank you for looking after his son (again). The vendor gathers the treats in paper wrappers to take to go.
You turn to ask Din something, but it’s covered by the noise of yelling and cooking. He tilts his head a bit lower to try and catch what you’re saying. Then, without hesitation, your hand finds purchase on the pauldron on his shoulder. Prompting him to lean in closer to you so you can speak within earshot.
“It’s been a minute since I saw you last,” you remark with a raised voice. “Everything good?”
Shit.
For a second he freezes. Partly at the lack of distance between you, but mostly because the last time he saw you he stormed out of your place like it was on fire without so much as a goodnight. You’re probably wondering what the hell that was about and he honestly can’t answer that himself. Although your expression seems more cheerful than troubled. He crouches closer to your ears and replies with caution, hoping to avoid the direction of that conversation.
“Yeah, we’ve been um… traveling a lot lately. I get contracted by the new republic pretty often these days. Leaving him behind with someone whenever I’m off planet for too long doesn’t seem fair to him so he’s always by my side no matter what.”
“Ah, that makes sense. You usually stop by for medkit supplies so when I didn’t see you last week I figured you were away.”
Din mentally smacks his forehead. Right. Of course you meant the shop. Because what else would you be implying to a fucking customer? You’re just making small talk. Something he has never really gotten the hang of. Seems pretty damn easy when he’s drinking though…
“We actually just got back. Too tired to fix something up so I figured I’d grab us something quick and easy before heading home.”
“Ugh. I feel that. When I get home I’m crashing on the first soft surface I see,” you groan, still bouncing Grogu on the curve of your hip. Those hips…
No. Stop it.
“Busy day,” he asks and your eyes roll upwards.
“Busy week,” you exclaim. “I swear I think about quitting at least once a day. But I like it too much. Plus it’s the only thing I’m any good at. Otherwise I’d probably be some kind of criminal.” You pause then laugh at the thought before adding, “then you’d probably have to hunt me down, huh?”
That… is a scenario that he already knows is going to stick in his brain for a while. It’s such an enticing thought that he doesn’t bother to tell you he’s not in that business anymore. A tiny part of him would much rather have you think he’d chase you. Obviously you’re not serious, but he can’t help but lean into the joke.
“I don’t know,” he says unconvinced. “Might be pretty easy to find you. All I have to do is look wherever there’s street food.”
A laugh bubbles out of you and there’s a strange feeling that radiates in his chest at being able to make you laugh. Pride maybe? No, more like… satisfaction.
“Don’t underestimate me, Mando. I know my way around the outer rim. I’d make you work for it,” you say. Taunting him with a knowing smirk.
A smile tugs higher on his hidden face. The thought of you making him work for anything will no doubt be food for thought later. And instinct tells him that might’ve been your intention. But two can play at this game.
You’re already nearly face to face but he inches even closer, almost close enough for metal to meet skin. Ensuring you catch every word right into your ear.
“I’d like to see you try, Shop Girl.”
Your eyes grow a little wider at the sound of your nickname and he takes pleasure at just how effective it is. It’s another reminder of that night. A name that was spoken within an intimate atmosphere that only the two of you occupied. And by your expression, that same thought crosses your mind too.
You bite your bottom lip in a smile. The same lips that were between his hands. The only lips he can’t seem to forget. The shape, the color, and how fucking edible they look. He’s even noticed how they pout a little when you’re concentrated on a task. More questions surface.
What do they feel like? What do they taste like? What makes a kiss so good that everyone can recall their first?
The bubble created is suddenly burst by the outside world. The stall vendor gleefully hands over the candied fruit over the counter in their wrappers and you take them with your free hand. Handing the mixed one to Grogu because he couldn’t decide on just one flavor. Reality returns to Din’s head and his thoughts immediately sober up.
What the hell is he doing?
He tears his eyes away. Even if you can’t tell, looking at you like that for too long feels wrong. You’re a good person, you’re trying to live a normal life, and what you’ve told him you’re not looking to get involved in any drama. He has to keep reminding himself of those things.
That same instinct to leave hits him again. Because that urge to do something he can’t take back flares up again and it’s best to not give that feeling any more energy. For both your sakes. He gestures his hand in a hand-him-over motion, signaling to you and Grogu that it’s time to go.
“Alright, time to go kid. Say goodnight.”
Grogu whines with a mouthful of sweets and a face covered in sugar and it makes him chuckle to himself. Din would normally find the defiance a little cute, if it wasn’t for the stunt he pulled earlier. You carefully hand him over with both arms leaning in close and again he feels another pinch in his chest at how carefully you exchange him.
Your bare arms graze against his clothed ones and he pulls away the second he has hold of his kid. He ignores the small current of electricity from the contact and maneuvers Grogu into the crossbody bag to his hip. Which, of course, makes him protest.
“Nope. You had your chance. Now you get the bag.”
“Aw c’mon,” you scold “He was just playing around. Now he’s in bag jail?”
First the kid and now you? He can tell his son no, but it might be a little harder to tell you that.
“Yeah, yeah. Maybe next time he’ll think twice about running off in a crowd,” he groans.
Once the kid is settled in the bag, you follow him down. Crouching down, you sit face to face with Grogu as he stuffs his face with the candied fruit. Resting your free hand on his fuzzy head as the other holds your own skewered treat.
“Kay, little rebel. Go stuff your face with some good food. And take it easy on your poor dad, alright? He’s not built for that kinda stress.”
“What’s that supposed to mean,” he asks, kind of amused by your ribbing. He can count on one hand the people who are undaunted enough to make playful jabs at him.
Your lips twist and your eyes take a tour up to your brows as you think of your reply.
“Hmm… just the way you get a little impatient sometimes. You were like that when you brought him over and paced my living room for an hour,” you chuckle. “You seem like the kind of man who gets antsy when something’s not in your control.”
A smile threatens to crawl his face. Pretty presumptuous. But he can’t deny how true that statement rings. Especially nowadays when it’s not just himself he has to worry about.
“Maybe so,” he replies with a hint of humor in his voice. “Patience isn’t really my strong suit. Although this one seems to enjoy testing it.”
“Patience is bitter,” you muse as you rub the top of Grogu’s head with your thumb. He coos with delight and the softest gaze glows on your face. Then from your crouched position, your eyes glance back up at Din and add, “…But the fruit is sweet.”
His jaw flexes beneath his helmet, and heat now courses through his veins.
That can’t be a good sign. He already enjoys your banter too much as it is. But that look just now was dangerous. It dredges up thoughts he shouldn’t have about you. Thoughts like kissing someone he barely knows. Feeling skin on skin. Showing you what a man like him can do to you compared to the boys of your past.
He saw it all over your pretty face when he held it in his hand. That flush on your cheeks, your dilated pupils. Hell, he even saw your heat signature rising in his helmet screen for fuck sake. There’s an attraction and that’s fine (and not completely unreciprocated) but it can’t be anything more than that.
You and him live completely different lives. There’s no need to uproot your peace and get involved in his complicated affairs. Even if something happened, it wouldn’t be long before the allure of the suit and mystery people usually perceive of Mandalorians would turn into repulsion.
That’s how it’s gone before. That’s the way it is.
•
You’re a bad person. A horrible human being and a shameless lowlife. Downright beyond saving.
I’d like to see you try, Shop Girl.
The damn sentence won’t stop replaying in your head. It’s not just a nickname. It’s a nickname he gave you. One that’s covered in underlying context and memories that only the two of you share. One that peppers your skin with goosebumps when it comes out of that raspy modulated voice. It’s even worse when your brain starts intrusively placing it in all sorts of sentences.
That’s it, Shop Girl…
You’re doing so well, Shop Girl…
Bend over for me, Shop Girl…
That last one has crawled into your dreams more often than you’d care to admit lately.
You need to get a grip. It’s just an attraction. You’ve been alone for too long and you’re getting all wound up over a smidge of attention. He’s just a regular decent person with a kid to take care of who also just happens to have an amazingly muscular body and a voice of sin. Simple as that.
Right. Simple.
After that night at the food stalls, the Mandalorian and Grogu have been visiting your humble Clinic Shop on a more frequently. Usually you'll see them a couple times a week if they're not on one of their long haul trips. Missions? Jobs?
It's not like Mando has any reason to let you know ahead of time. But when a week or so passes with no sign of silver or green, you can't help but feel a little down. You've come to look forward to seeing your regulars. But they grown to being your favorite customers.
And if you're being honest, theres a growing part of you that feels tied to the man in silver beskar. When he's here, the part blossoms. And when he's gone, it feels... wilted. It's unexpected and confusing to say the least. The closest feeling you could label it is homesickness. And truthfully, you're not really sure if you want to feel such a heavy thing towards anybody right now.
There's a lull in the store this hot muggy afternoon. You've already finished your prescription orders, restocked your shelves, even watered all the potted plants outside the entrance. Since you finally have some down time, you figured you might as well get to making some of your popular tea mixes.
On the back counter, you have a variety of dried herbs, flower buds, tea leaves, and a few large mixing bowls. The scent in the shop is incredible right now. Swirling around on the wind propelled by the metal fans around the shop. Spiced and aromatic with a hint of fruitiness. You let the smell fill your lungs and relax your body as you place measured scoops of the mix into small paper bags. A bead of sweat tracks down the back of your neck. Even with pinning your hair up and the strapless wrap you chose to wear today, the heat of the day still clings to your damp skin.
A cool glass of that Andoan wine would be so good right about now...
Maybe it was instinct, or maybe there really is some kind of invisible tie. But something makes your head tilt to the side and glance at the open entrance. And it's then that a glint of sliver light reflects on the stucco walls. A flutter of anticipation strikes through your chest and your eyes are locked at the entrance. Then, that familiar Silver T-visor and a pair of floppy green ears peek around the corner.
The smile that spreads across your cheeks is so big it almost hurts.
"Hey," you exclaim from the back of the store. You leave your station and excitedly make your way across the store to the pair as they step inside.
“It’s been a whi-“
“Ah ah, sorry," you cut Mando off mid greeting, halting him with your pointer finger. "Grogu gets first dibs.”
Mando shakes his head but you can tell he's humored. Turning his hip to the side and giving you access to the canvas crossbody where Grogu resides.
“Even though I'm a regular customer," Mando retorts.
If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that sounded a teensy bit like jealousy. You smirk, giving eyes only to the little green baby.
“Not when you’re as cute as him.” You say, placing Grogu on your hip and giving him little scritches on his wrinkled head.
“Isn’t that right, Kid. Mando wishes he could be half as cute as you.” The child coos at you and Mando shakes his head. But you can tell by his body language that he's at least a little amused.
You walk back to the back counter with the kid in your arms and Mando in tow behind you. And the feeling you have in this moment is oddly... domestic? You're not entirely sure if that's the right word. In your life you've never experienced domesticity. But you figure it's similar to that homesick feeling you get.
You place Grogu on top of your station and pull out an herbal lollipop from your apron for him. You like to keep a few handy for kids and they also help with coughs. The kids inky eyes gleam as he babbles and plunges the sugary candy in his mouth.
"Any chance that delivery for those new Pharmakits arrived yet," Mando asks, leaning a hand on the counter next to you.
"They did," you nod. "Any chance you're planning on taking on an army on your next trip?"
He shrugs, tilting his helmet to the side in that way he does when he's being aloof.
"Doesn't hurt to keep one on hand. You never know."
You hum in acknowledgment but inside a pit forms in your stomach. The danger he faces whenever he goes on these "jobs" isn't lost on you. Lately, it's been on the back of your mind more often than not. On his last visit, when he asked about ordering stronger meds and triage supplies, it hit you just how much his long absences affect you. And just the thought of never seeing him or his little boy again stirs up something vile inside.
“You seem to be busy today,” he remarks, pointing out all the open jars and mixing bowls with various dried leaves and herbs.
His remark takes you out of your thoughts. You must've been silent a second too long for him to change the subject like that. With a deep inhale and slight embarrassment you shrug off the negative thoughts and ground yourself back to reality.
“Yes and no. I’ve been restocking while it’s dead to keep busy.”
He leans in a bit to get a closer look at the contents of the bowl. Close enough for you to catch the scent of smoke and musk on his clothes.
“You’re mixing… tea?”
You hum a yes and nod.
“Tea can be used for lots of medicinal purposes. Many people prefer natural remedies to pharmaceutical ones. I try to have a mix of both.”
“So this is medicine?” You sway your head to the side, trying to think of the best way to explain the purpose of the tea.
“Kiiind of. You could say it’s preventative.”
“What does it prevent?”
“Pregnancy.”
A clearing of his throat follows your answer. You turn toward him with a smirk and a raised brow but his visor has now turned away your face.
Most fearsome bounty hunter in the outer rim, everybody.
“You asked, man,” you chuckle with a shrug.
“Guess that’s on me,” he says.
“This is actually one of my best sellers,” you tell him. You grab the wooden scoop and raise up the floral mix, letting the various petals and herbs rain back down into the bowl. The motion makes the sweet scent drive up in the air. “I have customers tell me they don’t leave the house before their daily brew.”
“I’m glad business is going well for you,” he deflects, making you fold your smile in your teeth. And suddenly your brain sees a prime opportunity.
“You know, Mando…,” you drawl as you mix the petals. “If you’re ever in a pinch and you need some, I could give you a sample.” The way his helmet jerks to face you almost breaks your nonchalant smile.
“That’s um… very generous but it’d be wasted on me.” His body straightens stiffly and you can tell the topic makes him a bit uneasy. But you press on anyway.
“You sure? You can never be too safe. I’m sure any visitors would appreciate it.” He sighs deeply and turns away, shaking his head in annoyance.
God, this is too much fun. Teasing him is so easy. If it wasn’t for the helmet you bet he’s sweating right now. He might look cool and collected. But after drinking with him, you know there’s in fact a man under all that metal.
“I’m sure,” Mando confirms. “I'm not seeing anyone at the moment.”
And there’s the answer you’re looking for.
Was it a bit sneaky? Yeah. Yeah, it was sneaky. But it rules out the theory that reason he told you not to invite home again was because he’s currently taken. It’s still an enigma as to why. But honestly there’s still the gut feeling that you did something to make him uncomfortable that night.
Maybe you crossed a line with one of your questions. You tend to ask a lot of questions. Your filter also isn’t everybody’s flavor. Even so, you had a great time talking, even joking around with him. You’ve come to cherish that night in your memory. And the thought that you obliviously might’ve said something to offend Mando in any way makes your chest ache.
But if that was the case then why has he been stopping by your store more frequently since then? He always says he’s restocking his med kit but you get the feeling there’s more to it than that. Almost as if he’s checking up on you. Making sure you’re doing ok. And above all, that’s what scares you.
It’s scares you how good that thought makes you feel.
“Picking up an order!” An unfriendly voice bellows from the entrance where a Trandoshan man in fine robes stands waiting. “Name’s Samir T’ar.”
It takes a second to snap back into action. But you slap on your best customer service smile and leave your task for later. Rounding the corner past Mando and the kid and walking to the Medicine Cabinet. Wiping the non-existent dust on your hands on your waist apron.
“Hi, yes! I’ll grab that for you right now.”
The Trandoshan stands waiting at the counter as you sort through the assorted orders in the glass case. Looking for the right name tag and plucking the tied linen bag. You dont turn your eyes toward him, but Mando’s pressance is all your body is aware of. You can tell he’s miandering through the shop, looking at various items on the shelves. Which, to you, is a bit funny since hes been here plenty of times by now.
Is he playing the curious customer right now because there’s someone here?
You rest the tied bag next to the register as you run the total. All while the Trandoshan taps his clawed fingers impatiently on the check out counter.
“‘Kay with the compounded medicine and the herbal soak salts, that puts you at… fifteen credits today.”
“It was twelve the last time.”
“Yyyeesss, some of the ingredients for the meds were hard to come by this time around. Outer rim shipping routes, and all that,” you smile, trying to humorously reason with the man.
“And that’s supposed to be my fault? Just make it the same price as before and I’ll be on my way already.”
Ugh, great. One of those.
“I understand where you’re coming from, really. But fifteen is pretty fair considering the initial cost of acquiring ingredients of this high quality. Can’t beat the price compared to those New Republic clinics-"
“Nonononono," he waves with both hands in disapproval. “I’m not paying a single credit more for something I can make myself.”
That’s kind of the point of it buying here, right? To save yourself the trouble of making it?
“Sorry. Price is firm," you say confidently but kindly. "Buuut, how about if I throw in a couple sample heating pain patches. Free of charge,” you chirp, unfazed by his condescension.
Work with me, guy. There’s a man packing heat in the back…
“How about I give you ten for the order and leave? I don’t need you to peddle your-“
It’s a hand that shuts him up. Not yours, as much as it twitches to swipe that bag and toss in it the trash. No. This hand is big. Leather clad. And planted firmly on the counter between you and the customer.
“You can pay the fifteen or you can leave. But what you won’t do,” Mando leans in towards the Trandoshan for effect. “-is talk to her like that again. Make your choice.”
With his chest pressed to the back of your shoulder, you struggle to not squirm. You can feel his heat on your body. His frame eclipses yours from behind. The smell of gun smoke and musk caresses your nose and you die a little inside. But it’s his words that make you want to melt into a puddle.
He didn’t just ask, he demanded for you to be treated with respect. Not that you can’t hold your own when it comes to defending yourself against snarky customers. But the way Mando didn’t even hesitate to intervene on your behalf. It stirs up all sorts of thoughts.
Oh maker, you really are a shitty person. The man stands up for you and all you can think about is how hot he sounded.
The Trandoshan swallows hard. Mando might as well a knife to the guy’s throat with the look of silent terror on his reptilian face. Without even breaking eye contact with Mando, he stuffs his clawed hand in his pockets, and pulls about 20 credit chips without counting. Letting them clatter on the counter as he tosses them.
“H-here,” he stutters. “Fifteen is fair.” With that he snatches his order from the countertop and makes a hasty exit.
“Have a nice day~,” you sing-song as he scurries out onto the street.
You shift your eyes up to Mando, his palm still pressed flat against the counter with his other hand thumbing his belt. His visor follows the customer as he leaves and you can tell that his body language doesn’t relax until the he’s completely out of sight.
“Fucker…,” he mutters under his breath. When he finally turns his visor to you, he finds a knowing little smirk on your face.
“What?”
“You know, if you really wanted to scare him, you could’ve just pulled out your blaster.”
His visor turns away and he takes a step back as if he’s been caught doing something out of character. And if it wasn’t for his confident stance, you’d almost say he got a little flustered just now.
“I didn’t like the way he spoke you,” he grumbles. Which only makes you giggle.
“You’re right,” you agree with a serious tone. Slamming your palms on the counter. “That’s the last straw! I’ll have to close and resort to a life of crime after all!”
Although you can’t read his face, his body language says it all. He tilts his head to the side in a way that can only mean “are you fucking kidding me” and it only makes you smile harder.
“C’mooon, it’s funny,” you say. But he’s still not charmed.
“Does he always treat you like that,” he asks like he needs to know for certain.
You fold your lips between your teeth to hide your smile. He’s concerned for you and you can’t help but bathe in it. At least for a little bit.
“And if I said yes?”
“I’m being serious.”
“It’s fine, Mando. It’s really not a big deal for me. Look, if I let every snippy customer get to me, I wouldn’t have a business. I’m a big girl. I can fight for my honor all on my own, don’t you worry.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Yeah? What is your point then?”
He steps in closer. Forcing you crane your neck to face him. Your backside unconsciously presses against the back of the counter and you’re pinned. He’s impossibly close. Close enough to see your eyes reflected on the inky black screen. Knowing he’s captured your full attention, he hits you with a bombshell that devastates you.
“I wouldn’t let anyone disrespect you when I can do something about it,” he says crystal clear, lowering his voice. “If someone gives you trouble, they’ll deal with me before they mess with you... Understand?”
That shuts you right up. Your playful expression falls, now replaced with silent astonishment. He keeps saying things that reach deep inside you, making your chest tight. Words like that make it hard to breathe.
You feel utterly captured and it’s no wonder he was the best hunter in the outer rim. Because even though he’ll defend your honor and call you sweet nicknames… all he has to do is stand his ground in front of you to make you feel like prey. And fuck, do you wanna be caught…
“Ok,” you breathe when you find the courage. “I understand now.”
“Good…”
Silence streches between you and it feels as though you’re both waiting for something to happen. Something that feels like it’s been teetering on the edge since the night you drank together. It’s connected and deep in a way you’ve never experienced before. You can tell it’s something he’s afraid to say out loud.
What you’re both afraid to say out loud.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t add anything to his statement. He’s got you locked in his gaze with no escape. And for a moment you wonder if he’ll take hold of your jaw again. Goosebumps rise to your skin because it wants so badly to close the gap.
Suddenly, a call rings from the vambrace on Mando’s forearm, abruptly breaking the tension. At first he hesitates to address it, still locked onto you. But after the second ring he lets out an aggravated sigh and steps away to check the incoming call.
You walk back to your work table and mixing bowl of tea to give yourself something to do while your breathing returns to normal. Scooping a measured cup from a large jar of dried leaves before adding it in.
Grogu sits with his little feet dangling over the table, now finished with the lollipop and looking at the candy-less stick with droopy ears. And before Mando turns to look, you sneak his son another herbal lollipop from your apron.
"Don't tell your dad," you whisper, pressing your index finger over your lips. Which earns you a happy little "Batu" in understanding.
Mando is pacing around now. Conversing with a gruff sounding Lasat. You don’t eavesdrop per se, but words like “new lead”, “investigation”, and “high-risk” get your ears to perk up.
“Shit,” he sighs deeply once the call is done. Planting his hands on his hips.
“Work call?”
“They like to keep me busy, that’s for sure. Best not keep them waiting.”
“R-right! The pharmakits."
You walk towards side of your shop in the back closet where your new inventory sits in their delivery crates. Grabbing one case but then after a second thought grabbing another before turning back and handing them to Mando. When you return Grogu is already back in his father's tote still nursing his treat.
“Couple things," you disclaim, handing the cases to him. "Keep these in a dark cool place if you can. Heat can spoil some of the medicine. And if you ever find yourself needing the epibacta, I’d advise you to take in a safe place. This dose will knock you out cold for a while. Emergencies only.”
He takes the cases by the handles and gives you a nod of understanding.
“I appreciate it. I’ll try to avoid needing it.”
“Just… be safe.”
“I will…”
Another beat of silence. At this point it's starting to feel like you're waiting on the other person to break the ice. But after a moment, he clears his throat.
“Well... Until next time, Shop Girl.”
“Until next time,” you repeat.
He really should stop calling you that. But you just can’t bring yourself to stop him. What do even tell him if he asks why?
You turn to the holopad on the front counter and check the inventory list to give your hands something to do. Chewing your bottom lip as walks towards the exit. One step, then another…
“And thank you,” you quickly add before he steps out. His foot stalls just before reaching the street and you tap on the screen pretending not to notice. Your eyes glance up to him, catching his helmet peer at you over his shoulder “…for stepping in.”
“Anytime,” he says softly. He step out into the street and you exhale a breath you didn’t know you were holding. You lean on the counter with your chin propped in your palm, now free to watch them go without notice.
Grogu turns back to look at you one last time, his tiny arm fighting against the fabric of his bag before popping out and waving at you. The adorable gesture makes you giggle. The little guy must know exactly how stinking cute he is. You wiggle your fingers back at him from behind the counter. Mando takes notice of his kid, turns his head back, and finds your gaze.
For a moment, everything’s frozen. People cross and mix in the street between you. Life seemingly goes on like any other day for everyone in town. But in your eyes, there’s only him. Only bright silver fills your vision. After a moment, Mando raises a hand for a final farewell, and in the next, he’s gone. Blended into the crowd.
An ache spreads in your chest, and that confirms it. You can’t deny that what you’ve been pushing down for months isn’t just an attraction. Strangers can be attracted to each other but he feels like anything but.
You like him. You like how you feel when he’s around and how safe his presence feels. You like that little skipped beat you get when something you said earns even the smallest chuckle from him. You like that he trusts you around his kid.
And you love that he keeps coming back.
You’ve tried to rationalize as just a simple customer acquaintance. But you can’t keep kidding yourself. Its always felt more than that. And you want to know more about him.
At the end of the day, you roll down the metal doors of your humble apothecary and walk the same 15 steps up to your home as you do everyday. You bathe, put on your most comfy shirt and sleep shorts, make yourself a simple meal, and wind down for the night. It’s been your routine everyday since you made this place your home.
Only tonight, despite all your trinkets, all your memories, and all your comforts, tonight your home feels a bit empty. Like something important has been removed and you can’t place what it was. With your dinner bowl in hand, you almost take your seat on the couch before thinking twice on it and choosing the floor of your living room instead tonight.
You actually find it to be pretty comfortable. More grounding. You only wish you had something warm to lean back on.
•
Din thought Guild Master Greef Karga had an inflated ego. But High Magistrate Greef Karga makes that Karga look like a Jedi monk.
He finds himself sitting on a leather chase with his legs propped on the window ledge in Karga’s high tower office. He watches him spread and maneuver a 3D hologram model of Nevarro and the town. His voice filled with ambition as he explains all his new projects for the upcoming year.
“We’ll put the lodges here, here, and here. They’ll have access to the hot springs in the crawling canyons and docks will be built around the water edges. I’ve spoken with that lovely Twi’lek bathhouse owner and she’s spending her best architects to Nevarro as a personal favor to me. It’s going to be the jewel of the rim I tell you!”
Much of the dialog goes over Dins head. Mostly because he’s dead tired and currently operating on less than four hours of sleep. They only landed a couple hours ago from another grueling mission. He partly listens to Karga’s plans, partly watches Grogu quietly sit on the hologram table as he stuffs his mouth with blue cookies his “uncle” has given him. But mostly, Din gazes out one of the many windows in his 360 degree office. Watching the sun set over the canyons and turn the sky a dusty pink.
The shiny bronze protocol droid shuffles around the office with a silver tray with two crystal glasses of spotchka. He offers a glowing glass to Karga who gladly takes it. Then the droid starts to approach Din with the platter, offering him a glass as well.
“Uh no no, he doesn’t drink,” Karga quickly corrects, taking a momentary pause from his plans. The shiny droid fumbles a bit, flustered, then offers an apology before scuttling away with the tray.
Mando doesn’t even bother to correct them. Too much energy. It’s true, he’s never accepted alcohol in front of Karga. Especially in those early guild days when trust was low. But even to this day, Din doesn’t drink around people.
Well… most people, that is.
An image of last time Din saw you pops into his head. That thick, slightly mussed hair tied up with a hair stick. Dewy skin. All smiles and laughter. You wore a deep blue torso wrap that time, His eyes kept following the lines of your collar bones and all that exposed skin seemed to glow in the reflected sunlight in the shop.
And those lips. Those goddamn pink tinted lips that he can’t get out of his head. If that’s not the definition of beauty he doesn’t know what is.
Your teasing is something he’s growing used to. But that day you pushed too far. You weren’t taking him seriously and you shouldn’t be the only one who gets to tease, right? When he cornered you against the counter, he made it known just how serious he was about defending you. That flush came back to your cheeks and your breathing had picked up. You had no idea, but your eyes had found his and it made heat pool in his lower abdomen as he got lost in the color of them.
In that moment, Din wrestled back the impulse to lift you up on that countertop, spread those perfect legs and-
“-Right, Mando?” Karga’s voice interrupts just as that train of thought was getting good. Din turns his visor over to him.
“Hmm?”
“You just agreed to let the kid spend the night here.”
“Right. Yeah,” Din scoffs. “Was that before or after I sold my ship to the Jawas,” he replies in a gruff tone. Karga doesn’t find the sarcasm amusing.
“Alright, alright.”
“Maybe I’ll sell them my armor while I’m at it.”
“I get it,” he exclaims. “You weren’t even listening! I was talking about the space port proposal and I can’t even tell where you clocked out. That's not like you, Mando.”
“I’m tired. I just got back from a long trip.” Kargas eyes glance between Din and the window he's been looking out from.
“I wouldn’t say tired. More like… Distracted.”
He says the word with an insinuation Din would rather do without.
“It’s nothing,” he deflects.
“Hey, you know me, Mando. I’m not one to judge,” Karga says, throwing his hands in the air. “If there’s anything on your mind I’m all ears. Money, politics, work, women-“
“There’s nothing to discuss. I’m fine," Din deadpans.
Kargas covers Grogus ears, who is too preoccupied by his munching to mind.
“Sounds like you need to get laid.”
Maker...
“You’re sordid,” he grumbles, shaking his head and turning back to the window. Karga just laughs. Amusement written all over his wrinkled face.
The arguments were one of the main things that changed between them over the last few years. Now they bicker like two old friends instead of two business associates. But one thing that has never changed is the way Karga tries to pressure him into revealing things out of him. Imperfectly human things.
He’d offer Din all sorts of things like spice or Twi’lek bathhouses just to see if he was capable of being tempted. And right now… there’s only one other person Din can think of capable of doing that.
“You know what I think? I think you’re starting to outgrow this lone wolf lifestyle of yours,” he speculates. “You’re a father now. Don’t you think the little one needs a mother?”
Dins helmet swivels back to Karga.
“Don’t you think you should stick to governing your town?”
“I was just getting to that," Karga exclaims excitedly. "You know we really should consider moving a few of the-“
“Here we go…,” Din sighs to himself.
What should’ve been a quick visit has turned into a one sided yap session. It’s been a couple weeks since he left and he’s eager to re-supply for his next run with Zeb. He’ll need to head to the square at some point as well. His home is in desperate need of a re-stock. And of course, a visit to the clinic probably wouldn’t be a bad idea if he’s already in the area.
Even from up here, your store can be seen at the far corner of the plaza. And every couple minutes, he can see you. Popping in and out of the small store and rearranging some of the potted plants outside. People greet you from the street and you turn to wave back.
It’s getting harder and harder to find excuses to go there that sound necessary. Last time he was there he picked up two new pharmakits, even though another two regular medkits sit unopened in his home. He’s been buying that energy tea you make, despite him being a kaf drinker his whole life. He keeps going back for shit he really doesn’t need. But if he was pressed to give a better reason, it’s mostly because he feels a need to check on you.
True, Nevarro has become significantly safer, but that doesn’t make it safe. Especially for a woman living completely on her own. You’re a kind hearted, giving person in a galaxy that does nothing but take. And someone like that should be protected. He’s looked the other way too many times in the past and he doesn’t want to be that person anymore. And plus the kid enjoys the visits.
Sure, the kid. Keep telling yourself that, Din…
A chiss man with a floating pallet of goods approaches your shop entrance and your attention turns from watering the plants to greet the vendor with a bright smile. You speak animately. And it would normally be endearing, if it wasn't directed towards another man. In the privacy of his helmet, Din grimmaces.
He shouldn’t be surprised. You’re well traveled, knowledgeable. It’s no wonder you’re able to buy products from so many places. But this particular vendor is getting a bit too close for Din’s comfort.
As usual, you talk with much enthusiasm. Sparking a conversation with the man. It’s clear you’re familiar with each other by the body language you both give off. And he’s not sure if it’s because you regularly get inventory from the man, or something beyond that.
You turn around on the balls of your feet to dip back inside the shop and as you do you’re completely oblivious to the way the Chiss’s head tilts to the side so his crimson eyes can roam your backside. And the only reason Din caught it was because the binocs in his visor seem to have unconsciously been turned on by his finger on his vambrace.
You return to with a small wooded box and open the lid to show him mineral salts, the kind he’s seen you make herbal soaks with. The vendor offers a large lidded glass jar of some kind of dried purple flower buds from his cart. With the added exchange of some credit chips, there’s more talking and smiling. Something he said makes you laugh as you sign his holopad and Din has to flex his fingers to stop them from clenching into a fist.
Enough. Stop watching.
The mental check forces Dins attention to shift back to whatever Karga keeps droning on about. You can associate with whoever you damn well please. It’s none of his concern who you do business with or what your personal life is like. Din nearly turns his visor away. But out of the furthest corner of his eye, he catches something he can’t tear away from.
The distance between the Chiss and you has suddenly shrunk. The moment unfolds in slow motion as his eyes chew on every second. The Chiss steps closer to lean down then…
Din’s arms uncross when the Chiss leans in close to your face. And before he knows it, the fucker plants a quick peck on your cheek. And you return it! The whole exchange lasts less than a second before you wave each other goodbye and he goes his separate way. You return inside with the product like nothing and Din sits there, completely rattled.
What… the fuck?
Was it a casual kiss? Did you even know that he was checking you out? If you did, was that a friendly goodbye gesture or was it flirtatious? That son of a bitch gets to walk around with bliss on his cheek all day now. Oddly enough, that’s what puts Din over the edge. A complete fucking stranger knows how your lips feel and he doesn’t.
Never in his life has he harbored thoughts like these. It’s downright pathetic. He feels corrupted.
“Fuck it,” he growls to himself beneath his breath.
“-Anyway, back to my point. I was considering having a port built for- hey!”
Before Karga has a chance to monologue further, Din has picked up his son from the edge of the desk—grubby hands still clinging to the bag of cookies—and has placed him right into Karga arms.
“I need you to watch over him for the night. I’ll come back for him in the morning.”
“Okay then? Fine by-.” Din doesn’t bother to listen because there’s no ending to that sentence that matters to him in this moment. He makes his exit, the slide doors opening as he nears them.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going all puffed up like that?”
“I need to settle something,” he tosses back before letting the doors shut behind him.
The sun is getting low and a few other vendors are starting to take down their signs and close their doors. You’re probably getting ready to close up for the day yourself. Hopefully he’s able to catch you before then.
Each step on the cobblestone is heavy with purpose. And it's not unoticed the way several people on the street see an armor clad Mandalorian and scurry out of his way with a petrified look on their faces. But right now he doesn't particularly care. Right now everything in his head is clouded with the exception of one objective.
From a couple stores away, you catch him approaching from your peripheray. And he's not sure how to describe it, but it's like something in your body language softens when you see him. Your shoulders become less tense, your eyes gleam, and you cast him that bright toothy smile that could stop any man's heart.
“Ah! Hey! It’s been a while, Mando! How’s-“
“I need to have a word with you.”
Both your expression and your hand freeze momentarily in place, minus a suspicious quirk in your brow.
“Okaaay, you have my attention,” you chuckle, but there’s a nervous tone riding on it. “What can I do for you today?
“I need to speak with you," you tells you bluntly. "Privately.”
Confusion paints across your face and your smile falls a bit. Understanding how serious his request is.
“Like, right now,” you ask hesitantly.
“Preferably, yes,” he answers.
“Ok, yeah sure. Um… I’m just about to close up and we can head upstairs in a minute.” You start to turn away but then quickly turn back to him and immediately add “or we can go somewhere you’re more comfort-“
”It’s fine,” Din quickly interjects, stopping that train of thought. “This won’t take long anyway.”
You blink at him a couple times and give him a quiet “ok then” before turning around and preparing your shop to close.
Seems that Din’s command from his last visit was taken seriously. Regret over those words washes over him. If he’s being honest, being inside your home again sets off several red lights in his head. But he’s already on the verge of blurting out something teetering on the edge of his brain. Better to wait until he’s behind closed doors and away from any prying eyes. Or flirtatious vendors. This shouldn’t be complicated. He’ll make it quick.
He decides to wait around the corner of the shop where the stone steps meet your front door. He leans against the wall with his arms crossed and his finger nervously tapping his arm brace. After a few minutes you round the corner with your bag over your shoulder and lead the way into your home. Instinctively, he looks around for any eyes before entering and closing the door behind him.
“So where’s your boy,” you ask, tossing your bag on the couch and walking towards the kitchen. “I have to say I’m kind of surprised not to see him on your hip. You seem inseparable.”
Your voice is chipper but he can tell by your stiff body and lack of eye contact that you’re not entirely comfortable. For a moment Din reconsiders this encounter. But no. The sooner he this bug out of his system the better.
“He’s… spending the night with a friend,” he answers. Grabbing one of those ceramic cups from the cabinet, you fill it with water from the sink and he’s starting to think that you’re only doing that to keep your hands busy.
“Aaww, a sleepover? Is it his first-”
“If you don’t mind,” he cuts off. “I’d like to get to my point.”
“Oh… Y-yes, I'm sorry. I’m rambling,” you say sheepishly. “I’m just…,” you take a deep breath, rest the cup of water on the counter, and lean back against it. Eyes fixed to the floor.
“…it’s just what you said the last time you were here. And the way you approached me earlier, you seemed kinda… I don’t know, upset? I know you don’t wanna be here so I’m wondering what I did to upset you that you’d come here.”
Damn it… He’s such an asshole.
He should’ve never said that. You've been thinking this entire time that you’re at fault for his shitty social skills. Truthfully, with the way that wine had his head so deliciously foggy, he had to leave before his body did something it was aching to do, begging him to do. But how does he even begin to explain that?
“You didn’t do anything,” he answers immediately. But thinks on it once more. “Well… technically you did. But I’m not upset with you.”
“You’re not,” you ask him sheepishly.
“I’m not,” he assures.
A beat passes in silence as you chew over his words.
“Okaaay,” you say with a smirk, “now you really got my attention.”
That mischievous tone travels through Din’s helmet, in his ears, and settles warmly in the pit of his stomach. Something about the combination of your sweet voice and relaxed shift in your body language makes this whole interaction even more nerve wracking.
“Sooo, you wanted to talk to me about something I did?”
“Right.”
“Okay, sooo...” He feels you urging him to continue but now Din finds himself more cautious of his words now. If you’ve been silently worried about offending him the last thing he needs is for this to come off wrong way.
“It’s… a bit hard to explain,” he exhales. If he could pinch his brow right now he would. “To put it plainly, the night we drank together, you said something that’s been… stuck in my head.”
“Was it the thing about the name?”
“N-no.”
“Was it the Pantora story?
“No.”
“Was it the comment about knowing my liquor? Because I like a drink from time to time but I don’t have like a problem or anything-“
“No- Can I finish,” he asks impatiently.
“Okay, okay. Sorry. Go ahead.”
“When we were drinking, and talking… we said a lot of things and got into some deep conversations. And at one point, you asked me if I ever kissed anyone before. I said no back then because… I've never given it any thought in the past. But now it’s got me… curious.”
Your quirk your brow at him.
“Curious how?”
“I want to know what it’s like,” he answers plainly.
“… Sorry, what?”
“I need this… curiosity out of my head. It’s driving me crazy and I need it out of my system. So I figured… since you’re the one who mentioned it in the first place, you can help me kill it.”
“You’re… Okay so, hold on…,” you say with a shaky breath. “Are you… asking me to kiss you?”
“That’s… an oversimplification. But yeah.”
“You’re asking me to be your first kiss? Am I understanding you right?”
Maker, you ask a lot of questions. Are you always like this? You did the same exact thing when he gave you the wine. On any other day it would’ve been endearing but he didn’t anticipate the conversation lasting longer than a minute. Now his request sounds more and more lecherous with each passing second.
“I won’t bother you again after this. You have my word. It’s completely casual. Just killing a curiosity.”
“There’s a preeetty common phrase about curiosity and loth cats that goes differently.” A giggle tumbles out of your mouth on the tail end of that sentence and humility crawls under his skin.
“Sorry to waste your time.” He starts to turn towards the nearest exit when you step in to stop him. Placing a hand briefly on his arm in the space between his armor and the contact sends a current of electricity up his spine.
“No wait, don’t be like that,” you toy with him.
“I’m not laughing,” he spits. But you still have the nerve to giggle.
“It’s okay, Mando,” you laugh assuredly.
“No, it’s not. It’s ridiculous. I hate it. I hate that you put this in my head.”
You fold your lips between your teeth to try to hide your amusement. But you still can’t help but crack a smile a little at his frustration. He basically just confessed to having this obsession for months and he can tell by your smug expression that you’re enjoying how incredibly uncomfortable he is about this.
“You’re right. I’m… sorry,” you say under your breath. Trying to fix your face.
There’s a beat of silence. Stepping in closer, he tilts his head down to you. Locking you in his gaze. He takes pleasure in being nearly a full head taller and the way your breathing picks up before he says in a low gruff voice…
“No, you’re not.”
You smile behind your hand as your eyes dance across his visor, unknowingly locking eyes with the man beneath. You know you’re not sorry, just like he knows he’s not particularly sorry either. It’s not just this moment. It goes back to every interaction you’ve had together. The banter, the nicknames, the visits. He’s as much to blame as you are. And then… you slowly you shake your head, agreeing with him and confirming his suspicion.
Fuck, you’re cute. He hates that he loves how cute you are. He hates himself for not being stronger.
“Ok,” you nearly whisper. Looking up at him with the sweetest eyes. “I’ll help you.”
•
“Is all this really necessary?”
Din currently sits on the floor of your living room. The same spot as last time in fact. Your were the one that insisted on it and honestly he couldn't bring himself to tell you no. Since he sat down in the soft carpet, you've been flitting around your home turning off lamps, closing blinds, and covering any reflective items. Which, admittedly, he's greatful for. But the more time he spends here, alone with you, the more he's not going to want to leave.
“It’s not everyday you get your first kiss, Mando. I wanna make sure it’s a good one. I wish I could re-do mine.”
Gloves fingers flex and stretch restlessly on his knees as you approach the last lamp sitting on a side table in the living room and pause.
“Are you sure about this?”
Fuck no he’s not. But the sooner he does this, the sooner he can find some normalcy in his head again.
“Flip the switch," he says in a low modulated voice.
You fold in a growing smile before taking a deep breath and flicking the switch. Bathing the entire home in inky darkness. The silhouette of you through turns to hues of thermal green and red, carefully maneuvering through your living room by memory before finding your seat in the floor in front of him. And with slight hesitation, Din reaches up to remove the last barrier he has.
“Can you see anything?”
“Not a bit,” you answer.
With that confirmation, he unclasps the chin strap and slowly lifts the helmet up and off. He blinks several times to adjust his vision before finding the outline of the table and placing his helmet there. On the return, his head bumps into your outstretched hand. Not knowing that you had moved.
“Agh.”
“Sorry sorry,” you pull away. “Give me a moment, I’ll find you.”
Your hands search in the dark for him. He can’t see much but he can tell your hands land on nothing by the way the air between you moves and he doesn’t feel any contact on his person. So he reaches out, bumping into your arms and taking hold of them. Following the line of your forearm until he reaches your hands.
“Here," he murmurs. Gloved hands wrap around your wrists and gently lift them up. He guides your hands forward until…
You let out a small gasp when your hands find the warmth of his bare face. Soft and giving as opposed to the cold, unyielding beskar. Their movements are slow and explorative. Running your thumbs over his stubble. Surprisingly his hands don’t release their grasp. His leather clad digits press against the racing pulse in your wrist as his thumbs run over the back of your palm.
“This help?”
“Yes, thank you,” you whisper.
From sound of rustling on the rug, Din can sense your body leaning in. Your breath brushes over his skin for a moment before something warm presses against his chin and it takes a second to register that it’s your mouth. You ease him into the build up and he’s greatfull for it. Jaw. Then cheek. Then just grazing the furthest corner of his mouth.
And then… contact.
At first it doesn’t feel like much. Just something soft and warm pressing against his mouth. What most people refer to as a peck, he assumes. But it’s when you barely pull back and return for another that a shiver wracks his skin. Your lips lock in the return, molding together in perfect unison. And it’s fucking electric.
Just by feel alone, he senses that your lips are slightly open. So he mimics you. Giving his jaw just enough slack to respond as you go in again. The sensations have his mind in a thick fog. The soft flesh, the sweet taste, the faint suction. His skin feels like there’s live wires going off underneath. Giving in completely, he finally returns the kiss. Pressing into it with more confidence.
You hum against his mouth, and he dies a little inside.
That’s when the real hunger builds. There’s a slow simmering heat rising between you now. Without thinking, his hands grip your wrists a little harder. Pulling you in closer. The kiss grows a bit stronger with each return back into each other with no loss of contact. Lingering longer and breathing against one another.
He feels your head tilt more to the side and again he mimics your movement. The break only lasts a fraction of a moment. But in the re-entry, the tip of your soft tongue happens to brush his mouth. Sweet wetness coats his bottom lip and it’s in that instant Din feels all restraint leave his body.
Taking your face in his hand, he kisses you open mouthed, inviting you in. Your tongues slowly graze one another and if he fucking died in this moment he’d be ok with it knowing that he got to know how you taste.
The hunger becomes unbearable. Soon enough the breathing becomes heavier and the air becomes hot. Your arms end up wrapping over his shoulders, pulling him deeper and he’s more than happy to dive further. Another small noise escapes your throat and the vibration travels through his entire body.
He needs to feel you. To taste you. Devour you. He needs you.
A break for air is the only thing that throws him back into semi-consciousness as you pull away. The heat built up between you makes him dazed. Hot breaths fill the small space between your lips as you lean your forehead against his.
“Mando?”
“Yes,” he responds in a raspy whisper. A few moments pass as you collect your words and catch your breath.
“Is this really just about curiosity…?”
Your words lean more towards a statement than a question. There’s no point in denying it now. As much as he tried to convince himself or rationalize his strange request, he does feel a pull towards you. Much more complicated than just attraction. The more he sees you, learns about you, and talks with you, the more… inevitable you feel to him. There’s a gravity to you that he can’t escape from. Nor does he want to.
“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?” The breath of your question brushes the heated skin of his cheek. And right now, he can't think of any answer that wouldn't give him up.
So he lets it fly.
“It’s not just the kiss I’m curious about.”
The silence in the air is thick. The only thing between you are the sounds of both of you catching your breath. It’s possible he might have ruined everything with that one sentence. But it’s the truth. It had nothing to do with the kiss and everything to do with you. Your kindness, your banter, your hospitality. All of it.
There’s no way of telling what you’re thinking at the right now. It’s in this moment that he wishes the lights weren’t out so he can at least read your expression. But then after what seems like an eternity, your forehead nudges against his and you blow a deep sigh of relief. Arms still draped over his shoulders.
“Oh good… I thought it was only me,” you confess with a skittish laugh.
And that tightly pulled restraint finally snaps inside him when he hears that.
Without any hesitation, he dives back in. Kissing you like a man starved. Just like that night, he feels drunk. Only this time it’s on the taste of you and the feeling of your hands finally on him. It’s that thought that drives him to rip off his leather gloves and toss them aside without breaking contact once. His bare hands find your waist and the strip of bare skin between your shirt and linen pants.
“Is this what you meant,” you pant. “When you told me not to invite you in again.”
“Yeah... it is.” He pants the confession as his mouth trails down the line of your jaw and finding your neck in the dark.
“That’s a relief,” you chuckle. “I was worried I offended you.”
“The only thing that’s offensive is that I can’t see that pretty pink flush on your face right now.”
“Should I get a blindfold,” you tease.
What a fucking woman. The mental image of you in a blindfold, only a blindfold, pours fuel on an already blazing fire. But for now, he’s more than ok feeling his way around tonight.
“Next time.”
It comes out of his mouth confidently and without hesitation. Because you both know there will be a next time. He’s bitten into the forbidden fruit and now he’s addicted to the taste.
With a simple shift, his hands dip beneath the thin fabric of your shirt and find the delicious heat of your soft belly.
"Lay down for me."
With your arms draped over his shoulders, you eagerly comply. Slowly dragging him down with you. He careful not to press all his weight on you—being crushed by beskar would definitely kill the mood—but it doesn't stop you from pulling tighter. Craving connection. All while Din rains wet kisses and soft bites upon your pulse.
So this is what your skin tastes like. Slightly salty, sweet, and smooth between his teeth. He might eat you whole if he’s not careful. He nips at the skin of your exposed collar bone and you writhe. Arching to press your chest to his. So he decides to give it some attention.
“Take it off," you pant with an neediness that drives him pull the damn shirt off in one swift motion.
His bare hand crawls up your sternum. Exploring the valley of soft skin free of any restricting fabric. The moment his fingers find the stiff peak of your bare breast he pinches eagerly. Earning the sweetest little whimpers from you as his mouth works on the other nipple. Biting and sucking the soft point. He can’t see a thing in the dark, but what’s lacking in sight is made up by sound with the delicious breathy moans you let out for him.
“Mando…”
Fuck, does he love the way you call out for him. Every touch, kiss, and suck he gives elicites the most gorgeous sounds out of that perfect mouth. The sounds to straight to his cock, now painfully stiff. It's tempting to just dive into you right now. But he's waited this long. So why not take his sweet time with you. With his face still burried between your breasts and you fingers raking through his hair, Din feels a press of your hips against his armor. And he needs more.
“Shop Girl…”
The nickname doesn’t catch your attention. You’re either too lost in the moment or too breathless to answer. It’s only when he uses your given name that your body perks up and you give him a raspy “yeah?”.
“Do you want this," he asks.
His right hand has found its way to the waist band of your work pants. Ready and waiting for your answer. You try to grind against his hips but he presses your hips down firmly. He knows damn well neither of you want to stop. But he needs to hear it. There's no going back after this.
"Is this ok?"
He doesn't know if you're unsure. Or if maybe your trying to meet his eyes through the darkness. But there's a long pause. Only the sounds of heavy breaths and the pulse beating hard in his ears. And every second that passes has him hanging on the edge of madness.
"Yes...," you finally breathe. "I need you."
She needs me.
The words leave him winded. Months of questions and pining suddenly feel well worth the wait just to hear those words. They not only affirm going further, but the bond that's been steadily growing between you. Not a single ounce of hesitation survives after he hears that. And with one hand, Din loosens the tie of your pants and dives in beneath the fabric of your underwear.
By feel alone, Din manages to pull your pants down to your thighs and you kick them off your feet. His hands roam over all the smooth exposed skin and he can only imagine how perfect you must look if you feel this good. The tips of his fingers finds the dampness between your legs, running along the seam, and he slowly pushes inside until his knuckles meet your entrance.
You release a soft gasp and he swallows it with a deep kiss. You both sigh into each other's mouth. As if you need the other to even breathe. Din's lips never leaves yours as he does an experimental curl against the fleshy part of your walls and you arch your body against his.
“This where you need me," he huffs against your lips. "Right here?”
“Right there... Perfect..."
"I wanna taste you." The confession comes out before he can even think about it.
"Then taste me, Mando."
He can hear the smile in your voice. The taunt. And he's more than happy to reciprocate it.
He rises above you and you whine from the lack of contact. But the loss doesn't last long. Because before you even can register what he's doing, his head has already lowered between your legs.
"What are you- ah."
That gasp you let out when his mouth envelops your pussy is downright tortured. Good too know you were just as desperate as he was.
"Fuck! I thought you meant... You were gonna... Shit..."
No fucking way would he be satisfied tasting you on just his fingers. The sweet tangy flavor explodes over his tongue and he groans. Fucking hell, you taste good. He doesn’t even know what the hell he’s doing but that’s sure as shit not stopping him. He drowns in you. Lapping and sucking on your swollen little bud and loving the way it makes you cry out. Two thick fingers pump into your wet heat as you melt in his mouth. Such a fucking treat.
You writhe beneath him. Squirming and clawing at anything to hold on to as he works you up. Eventually your hands finds his hair again. Taking a fistful and pressing his face further against your cunt. The sting on his scalp makes his cock twitch in his flight suit and he groans.
“You want me to make you come, Shop Girl," he mumbles against you.
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“Make me come, Mando... Please…”
He doesn't break pace, doesn't falter, doesn't change a damn thing what he's doing because he can feel close to the edge you are. You tighten around his digits as the pump in and out. And with a firm suck on your clit you let out a strangled gasp.
"Oh Fuck! Fuck! Mando!"
Your breathing becomes short and shallow. Panting so hard right before holding your breath and tipping over the edge with a strangled cry. You come long and hard. Trembling so much he has to hold you steady by the hips.
Through the waves of your climax, Din continues to eat you. Lapping at your perfect pussy like it's wine and he doesn't waste a single drop of you. Even sucking and licking his fingers clean as you lay breathless before him. They come out of his mouth with a wet pop and he can’t help but let out a small breathy laugh.
“I’ve always wanted to try that…” he confesses.
You let out your own exhausted little laugh and he can already tell he wants more. More laughter, more of those pretty sounds, more of you.
It's with that in mind that Din starts pulling his cape off.
Piece by peace, he silently removes his armor. And after a few moments, a second pair of hands joins in. You fumble in the dark with his chest piece first. Helping him out of his armor one section at a time. They fall to the carpet with a soft thud along with the crumbling pieces of the restraint he’s built since that first night.
There’s no signs of stopping. You keep giving him more. More heat. More yearning. More questions.
What makes you laugh? What gives you pleasure? What makes you feel good and whole and satisfied? He needs to know.
And now that he’s gotten a taste, there’s no way he’s leaving here tonight until you’ve both had your fill.
•
If this is what happens when you invite the Mandalorian into your home, let your door never close.
Getting to your bed was easier than you thought it’d be in pitch black darkness. The only thing keeping your ‘bedroom’ separate from the rest of the home is a wooden lattice divider from the ceiling to the floor.
He lays you down on the soft futon on the floor and you open for him like a flower. Two strong palms drag and paw all over your body as his mouth works magic on yours and it makes you dizzy with desire.
Maker, he’s so good with his hands.
His body separates from you only to remove his flight suit and you whine at the loss of contact. Naked and panting for him. Within seconds he’s back on top of you and the feeling of his bare skin against yours makes your head spin. With everything so dark you wonder if this is even real. Maybe this is all a fever dream.
“Are you gonna show me how Mandalorians fuck this time,” you tease against his lips. Calling back to when he showed you how they drink. With your bare legs around his hips, you tease his resolve by running your inner thighs over his sides and you’re rewarded with a low hum. The hand supporting your neck slowly drags forward to find the base of your throat.
“You don’t need to know how Mandalorians fuck.” His wide grip gently squeezes the sides of your throat, just enough for you to feel the power in those hands. “Just how I fuck.”
Holy shit. You thought him gripping your jaw was hot. But this? This might’ve awakened something you didn’t even knew you wanted.
A whimper escapes you only to be muted by his mouth again. His tongue swirls with yours with a hunger you’ve never knew was there these past months and it’s such a relief to know that you weren’t the only one pining.
Mando’s mouth travels to your cheek, then jaw, finally finding purchase on your neck. Biting and sucking as his body presses into yours. He’s insatiable right now. There's no doubt that you'll find yourself covered in marks when the lights come back on.
You’re so lost in the moment that you almost don’t notice when something hard and warm presses against your inner thigh. Out of nowhere, a thought you haven’t even considered before decides to pop into your head at the very last minute.
“H-hold on!”
Your hands find his shoulders, urging him to pause. His lips unlatch themselves from your neck the second you blurt it out. Instantly propping himself above you with his hands on either side of your head.
“You want me to stop?,” he pants.
“No… Hell no. It’s just…”
How do you even begin to ask this?
“Um… I know I probably should’ve asked earlier but… you’re human, right?”
Mando blows out a low chuckle, understanding your underlying meaning. He feels human, from what your hands can tell anyway. He could be like his kid for all you know. It’s not that you’re not willing to go Inter-species, but your experience is mainly human. Plus with the lights off it’d be pretty difficult to figure out fitting things.
Taking your hand from his shoulder, he presses it against his chest where you can feel a dusting of hair. His skin is hot, damp with a thin layer of sweat and his breathing is heavy. He continues to lead your hand further down his torso so you can feel every hill and valley of his muscles. Eventually your hand hits a trail of hair down the middle and then…
Oh shit.
His hand guides you along the length of his cock. Encouraging you to explore every ridge from the thick base all the way up to the damp tip. He’s stiff and hot in your palm. When you give him a firm squeeze he groans and twitches in your grip.
Oh shit.
“Does that answer your question?”
The human part, definitely. Fitting is still debatable.
He lets you handle him. Giving you free rein to tug and tease as he bucks into your hand. He groans with pleasure and the power trip you feel knowing exactly how you affect this fiercely disciplined man makes the pulse between your legs throb harder. After a minute, his hand snatches yours to a halt, making your grip around his cock tighter.
“Show me where you want it,” he demands in a gruff breath. And you do just that. Pressing the damp tip against your clit. The contact sending a jolt of pleasure up your spine.
“Inside,” you plead. “I need you inside me.”
With an impatient huff, his hand comes down to take hold of your leg behind the bend of your knee. Spreading you wide and teasing your entrance before pushing himself inside. You gasp at the initial stretch, digging your nails into his shoulders. Mando curses under his breath and as he pushes you worry for a moment if there’s an end to him.
It’s slow, deliberate. Feeding his cock into your tight cunt until he’s pressing the limits of your walls. You shudder together when he’s completely sheathed and his hands grip your hips so hard his fingers dig into your flesh.
“Mando…” You throw your head back. Arching your whole body, waiting it to adjust to him. “Fuck!”
“I knew it,” he pants. “Fucking knew you’d feel good…”
He splits you in half and before you’re even ready the first hard thrust hits you. You whimper from impact and he thrusts again. Pinning you down by your hips to keep you at the perfect angle. Soon he sets a steady pace as he fucks you into delirium. It’s too much, he’s too much. Yet you moan and whine for more like each thrust might be the last. He feels incredible and you can only claw at his trim waist as it moves for you.
“That’s it… Good girl… Taking me so well… I wanted this… I want you to know every part of me.”
His words plunge into your chest like a dagger. Laced with a meaning that goes far beyond sex. Because you feel it too. You wanted him to be closer. You wanted him to know your name, know you. Even if it took this long to get here.
You feel one hand find your leg. Hiking it up so the back of your thigh lays flat against his chest. His hand drags up and down, caressing the soft flesh without losing a beat with his thrusts. A kiss presses on your calf and your head feels like it’s spinning. One moment he’s rearranging your insides and the next he’s giving your body sweet affection.
Tension builds in your core. Growing tighter and tighter with each hard thrust. Usually the second orgasm is more elusive to chase on your own. But this man is about to push you right into the next one not five minutes after the first one.
“Don’t… Stop…,” you pant. “Don’t stop, I’m so close, Mando…”
“Come for me... Let me feel you."
Then it comes. Tensing your entire body before coming down like a crashing wave. It’s spreads through every inch of your body, making you pulse and shake beneath his frame. You cry out in the midst of the euphoria, clinging to his shoulders, and everything feels so right. He moans along with you, feeling every tight pulse around his cock and letting you ride out the remaining waves.
“That’s two now, Shop Girl. You gonna give me a third?”
You let out a breathy laugh, still coming down from the clouds.
"I... I'm not sure I can," you chuckle.
"Yeah, you will," he pants. Amusement lacing his raspy voice.
Without out warning, Mando takes both your legs. Placing your calves over his shoulders as his leans forward. Folding you in half. And with one hard thrust, his cock drives back into you at a deeper angle. Your back bows and you swear you see stars in the blackness of the room. His lips land on the corner of your mouth and kiss their way to your lips. Offering a soft apology after the roughness. His strong arms are propped around you and you feel eclipsed under his broad body.
Soon his rhythm picks up. Becoming more desperate as he chases his own release. The room fills with the sound of your bodies meeting and you don't think you've ever heard anything more perfect. His panting picks up, his moans become louder, and the quivering breaths he makes when he finds a particularly deep spot will no doubt live in your mind rent free forever.
“You wanted me bare, didn’t you,” he huffs, pressing his damp forehead to yours.. “When you offered me that tea? You thought about me coming inside this perfect cunt, didn’t you.”
Caught red handed. Sure, you wanted to know if he had a partner as well. But the thought did cross your mind when he cornered you against the counter. You wanted to know how he felt bare, with nothing between you. Even dreamt a few times about it.
“Yes… Fuck, yes! Please! I want it!”
“You gonna come with me, Shop Girl? Hmm?”
“Maker, Mando! I’m right fucking there, please! I… I’m… ah-“
His firm hand grips your jaw. Whipping your face back to him so he can cover your mouth his. He kisses you deep, open and messy. No technique, just raw desire as he eats you alive. You moan and whimper against his mouth with each debilitating thrust he makes. He drives into you faster, harder. Relentlessly pushing you closer to the edge.
When it arrives, the orgasm hits you at full force. Wracking your whole body in convulsions as you scream, actually scream against his mouth. Your toes curl, your nails dig into his back and your cunt squeezes on to him for dear life like he’s never allowed to leave again.
Mando hisses through his teeth and he's right there with you. Ramming into you with relentless force as he chases his own release. His face dives into the crook of your shoulder and his arms scramble to take hold of you and he loses control. Letting out a sharp groan as he comes.
“Fuck.. Fuck,” he shudders in your ear. “Agh!”
His hips jerk against your body, driving himself as deep as you can take him. You feel his cock throb as he pumps into you again and again. Filling you to the point of spilling out and it’s... everything. Connected in such a profound way you’ve never felt before. In this moment, it’s hard to tell your bodies apart. You’ve melted and mixed and you never want to separate.
You ride it together, mold together, lose control together because you both knew it’d come to this. In the end this was inevitable. And in a galaxy filled with unknowns, in this you can be certain. A connection like this is few and far between. It’s real and raw and rare. Resisting that feeling was never an option, so why try?
Even in the climb down he doesn’t stop. Those hard demanding thrusts slow to a gentle drags as if he doesn’t want to finish yet. Hands glide all over each other’s bodies, soothing the other. All along his tense shoulders, you pepper soft kisses to his skin. Easing you both down from the clouds. He hums in the decent and it lulls you into an exhausted bliss.
Everything feels hazy and soft. You’re not sure how long you stay melted together like this. Minutes? Hours? But it’s needed. After a while, the breathing becomes steady and a soft, drowsy satisfaction settles between you.
“That’s the first time someone's come inside me,” you quietly confess. For a moment, Mando absorbs what you just said. Then you feel him prop himself in his elbows above you.
“Really?”
“Yeah…,” you breathe. Running your hands up the sides of his neck and resting them on his stubbled face.
“You know… since we’re sharing firsts tonight.”
He smiles and this time you’re able to know for certain by the feel of it in your hands. Leaning down, his forehead finds yours in the dark and you don’t think you’ve ever felt so whole before.
“I’m your first, huh,” he breathes. “I like that.”
There’s so many layers to this man. Quiet and withdrawn. Rough and demanding. Soft and caring. Each one is a trait you’ve come to cherish. You’re not sure if you love this man. But you’re definitely starting to fall for him. You can explore that treasure box later though. For now, you’ll take tonight for tonight and let whatever comes next between you arrive in its own good time.
“Me too, Mando...”
•
•
•
💕 THANK YOU FOR READING 💕
If you enjoyed my notes app delusions, please reblog, add a comment, drop insane reaction pics. I love seeing all your interactions, thoughts, and support on here. Might consider posting my works on A03 as well but we’ll see. Much Love! 🥰
Din Djarin x f!reader | 11.4k | 18+ | main masterlist | ao3
summary: After your first few weeks as Nevarro's new schoolteacher, there was only one student's parent that you hadn't yet met. When you decided to send Grogu's dad a message, though, you never would have expected where it led.
a/n: Din's back! This is my fic for @penvisions' give a little love challenge. My prompt was mistaken identity. 👀 Once I figured out where I wanted to take that, this was pretty fun to write! Thank you @katareyoudrilling for being the best beta and helping me whip this one into shape. Also, I did attempt to research how messaging would work in Star Wars, got conflicting results, and then gave up and decided I can do what I want. So consider this almost canon-aligned as far as messaging goes. lol
tags/warnings: epistolary, fluff, space texting, reader is an elementary-ish teacher with no physical description, a lot of school-talk, elementary school student shenanigans, flirting, teasing, pet names (cyar'ika/sweetheart, mesh'la/beautiful), mistaken identity, misunderstandings, Star Wars cursing (kriff, kark, dank farrik), a bit of ogling, smut (kissing, fondling, grinding, fingering (f!receiving), p-in-v sex, creampie)
...
You haven’t been on Nevarro long, but you’ve learned a lot about your new students already. When Karga recruited you, all the way from the Mid Rim, he’d told you it was a small but growing city with a small but growing school. They finally had enough students to need to split them up into multiple classrooms, and that was where you came in. You’d taken the job because you liked the idea of helping to build something, and because you were ready for something new.
You were taking over the room with younger children, which was your preference. And so far they’d been wonderful to work with – they were all so excited by new things, so happy to learn. Each day was a joy as you watched them grow.
As you got to know the kids, you also got to know the parents. Teaching the youngest children made you more well-known around town, and it had been easier to settle in than you expected. There was Diima, who was learning how to braid her own hair and had been teaching some of the other kids – her moms had invited you over for dinner and you thought you might end up being friends. Oora, the young Twi’lek who loved spaceships of all kinds – his father ran the food stall in the market that always had the best fruit. And Tamar and Ilana, the twins, who very intentionally never dressed alike – their parents ran the med clinic.
And then there was Grogu, your smallest student. You’d never met his dad, though you knew of him from Karga and Cara. But so far you’d only learned that Grogu missed him and that he was off planet a lot. He was never there to pick up Grogu, at least not in the few weeks you’d been on Nevarro so far. It was always Cara or IG-11, or a few times even Karga himself.
As you waved goodbye to the last of the kids for the day – Kiran, a young Mirialan whose mother was a mechanic at the shipyard – you collapsed into your desk chair with a sigh. Cara had come by to pick up Grogu again, but you’d been hoping to finally meet his elusive father. The kids would have a show at the end of the term to sing some songs and show off what they’d been learning. So far you’d been able to invite all of the parents personally when they came to pick the kids up. You sighed again and tapped your data pad – you’d just have to send him a message.
You’d sent him a message only once before, when you first started, just to introduce yourself. You hadn’t gotten a message back.
You stared down at the pad for a moment, biting your lip. Just be straightforward, to the point. You nodded and scrolled down to the contact for Grogu-parent. You saved all of your students’ parents’ contact info that way, though you added their names to the end if you knew them.
you:
Hello! This is Grogu’s teacher, I sent you a message a couple of weeks ago when I started. I just wanted to invite you to our end of term show and to let you know that his schedule will be changing a bit, as we’ll be adding a rehearsal once a week. His class will be singing some songs and showing off what they have learned this term. They’re all very excited about it!
You sent another message with the date and time of the show and wondered how you should sign off.
you:
I will also let Cara and IG know. Please let me know if you have any questions and if you’ll be able to attend. Thank you!
Once the message was sent, you leaned back in your chair, hoping you’d hear back from him this time.
You were startled when your pad chimed before you’d even settled into your chair.
Grogu-parent:
Hello. Thank you. I will be there.
You grinned. A response! And so quickly! You needed to say something back, to make it clear this was a way he could get in contact with you if needed.
you:
Great! I know that will make Grogu very happy. He has really enjoyed learning to follow along to the notes of the songs and he is becoming a very enthusiastic assistant on the drums.
There was a pause, and you wondered if you had said too much, or if he’d gone quiet again. But then your pad chimed.
Grogu-parent:
Something he can hit that makes noise? Sounds perfect for him.
You laughed. If someone had told you that morning that you’d actually talk to Grogu’s elusive dad and that he would make you laugh, you weren’t sure you’d have believed them.
Grogu-parent:
Thank you for telling me. I know I miss a lot when I’m off planet.
Suddenly, you realized you hadn’t thought of it that way and wanted to kick yourself. Of course his dad would be sad to miss hearing about what Grogu did in school, and all the little ways he was growing and learning. Your heart squeezed in sympathy.
you:
Would you like me to send you more updates? I would be happy to do it. I usually share them with parents at the end of the day. I’m sorry I didn’t think to send them to you this way instead.
Grogu-parent:
That’s alright. I know I never replied to your message, I didn’t get it until days later. Yes, please send me updates. I might not be able to reply right away but I will be happy to get them.
You tilted your head as you read his message, wondering what sort of work he was doing.
you:
Oh that’s fine! I’ll start sending you updates, but no pressure to respond to them. I understand you must be busy.
Grogu-parent:
I’ll respond when I can. Thank you again.
You smiled as you set your pad down and stood from your desk. Finally, you thought. You’d made contact with Grogu’s dad! You walked out of the schoolhouse with a spring in your step.
As you made your way to the market to pick up something for dinner, you couldn’t wipe the smile from your face. You were happy you’d moved to Nevarro, you realized – you liked the people and the growing feeling of community that you had been welcomed to join almost immediately. There were beings of all kinds in the little city, from all over the galaxy – you’d met a fellow newcomer just the day before, a friend of Cara’s from the resistance who was good with plants. You’d met Carm, a Bothan, who had a knack for fixing droids. You were pretty sure you’d even spotted a Mando, once or twice, and Diima’s mom had told you about the family that had just moved in next door to them and was planning to open a restaurant.
It was a nice place to live. You were happy you’d decided to take the offer.
…
The next day, when Cara picked up Grogu, you let her know that you’d also invited his dad to the show. Grogu chirped and smiled at you, and you smiled back.
“That’s right, bud, your dad is coming!”
Cara grinned. “See? I told you he would, squirt.” Grogu made a noise like a cheer and waved his little arms and you both laughed. “See you tomorrow, teach!” Cara tossed Grogu lightly in the air as she turned and he squealed.
You smiled, shaking your head at their antics as you made your way back to your desk. You knew just what you wanted to tell his dad.
you:
Today Grogu kept working really hard on trying to write his name! The Aurebesh characters are still new and tricky for them, but he honestly does pretty well when we can draw them in the sand with his claws. He also shared his snack with his friend Oora, which was sweet.
You didn’t get an answer right away, and you tried not to be disappointed. It had been nice to talk to him the day before, but you knew he was busy with work, whatever work he did. You packed up your bag and hefted it onto your shoulder.
When your pad chimed, you dropped it unceremoniously back onto your chair.
Grogu-parent:
Are you sure you’re talking about my kid? He’s not usually one to share food.
You laughed, but before you could reply your pad chimed again.
Grogu-parent:
That’s great about his name. I know he knows so much, even though he seems so little.
You nodded as you typed your response.
you:
He does! I can tell. Sometimes he gets a little bit frustrated when he can’t communicate the way he wants. But the kids are all great with each other and they really listen to him, even without words.
Grogu-parent:
I’m glad to hear it. I worried he would be too little for the class, even though technically he’s older than I am.
You laughed and tucked away that little tidbit of information.
you:
I know he’s technically the oldest, but he’s also not the youngest, in terms of development. They’re a good group and they get along well.
Grogu-parent:
He is an old baby, isn’t he? Thank you. Again.
You laughed and found yourself smiling again as you walked to the market. You wished you knew his name, but it felt awkward at this point to ask. You supposed he’d have to stay “Grogu-parent” in your pad. For now.
…
After that, you fell into a bit of a rhythm.
He wasn’t always able to reply immediately – sometimes you came in to work in the morning to find his response waiting for you, and you didn’t let yourself wait for more than a few minutes at the end of the day.
But he always replied.
You found him easy to talk to, with a clear sense of humor and love for his son that you could feel through the messages. It infused every word he sent you, and it made you smile softly whenever you thought about it. You still felt bad that you hadn’t thought of this arrangement earlier. But you tried to make up for it with more details now.
…
you:
Grogu led the other kids in a game today at recess. It seemed to be a mixture of tag and catch, and I’m not sure if he made it up, but they had fun. And I was proud of him for teaching them without words!
Grogu-parent:
Sounds like the game he learned from a friend’s kid on Sorgan. I’ve seen him play it before, but I’ve never figured out the rules. I’m not convinced they don’t make them up each time they play it.
…
you:
Grogu drew you a picture today! From what I could tell it’s your house, he was very proud of it.
Grogu-parent:
I can’t wait to see it. He has a collection growing at home on the walls of his room.
…
you:
Today we learned about hyperspace, and Grogu got really excited when I showed some footage of what it looks like to travel in hyperspace from the cockpit. He’s not the only kid who’s been in space, of course, and they all had a lot of fun sharing about their experiences. He drew us a picture of what I think is your ship, and the other kids loved it.
Grogu-parent:
He does love hyperspace. I think it’s the colors. That kid loves to fly, even to go upside down. Never seen someone treat an evasive maneuver like a thrill ride like that.
you:
Evasive maneuvers, huh? Sounds intense!
Grogu-parent:
It’s been a while, but when he first came to me we had to run from some people who were looking for him. And me. Took us around the galaxy for a bit.
You remembered the school’s security measures that Karga and Cara had told you about and furrowed your brow.
you:
Is everything ok now? Is he in any danger? Are you?
Grogu-parent:
We took care of it. But that’s why we have the alerts in place at the school. Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you.
you:
I’m not worried about me! But Grogu and the rest of the kids! I can’t believe anyone would want to hurt them.
You could believe it, though. You just didn’t want to.
you:
I mean, I know the Galaxy can be like that. I just wish it wasn’t.
Grogu-parent:
I know what you mean. I wish that, too.
You didn’t realize until later while you were eating dinner that he’d never answered your question about his own safety, and it made you worry. You didn’t even know what his job was, you realized, and felt the worry settle in your chest.
…
you:
Grogu made you another picture but this time he refused to use any color except blue. I’m not sure what it is, but he was very insistent about it! Cara took it home for you.
Grogu-parent:
I’m not surprised, he loves blue things. I can’t wait to see it.
…
you:
Today Oora gave a demonstration of a traditional dance he learned from his family, and surprised us all – apparently Grogu had been helping him practice and knew the dance, too! It was very sweet of him to dance with Oora when he got nervous.
Grogu-parent:
He does love music, and he really loves helping his friends. He feels everything so strongly.
Grogu-parent:
I’ll tell him, too, but if you remember tomorrow, please tell him I’m proud of him.
…
For once, you had evening plans.
You hurried home at the end of the week to drop your bag and then to meet Cara and Diima’s moms at the cantina. When they’d invited you, you’d internally done a victory dance – you’d made friends!! – but externally, you’d kept your cool. Mostly.
Cara was the only one there when you arrived, and you settled in beside her in the booth.
“Teach!” She greeted you with a grin. “Whatcha drinkin’? How are the kids?”
You gave her your order and soon you had a drink, too. You filled her in on what your charges had been up to that week, getting a few laughs at their antics. “What about you, constable? Anything new?”
“Well, we were going to take care of a reptavian problem over towards the east end of the lava flats, but Mando had to go off planet again. We’ll wait for him to get back, could use his firepower.”
You tilted your head. You figured she was talking about the shiny Mando you’d seen around the market sometimes. “Who–”
But before you could ask, Neela and Aminet arrived, and by the end of the night you forgot you’d even had a question at all.
…
you:
Grogu got excited when we learned about banthas and blurrgs today! We’re focusing on the letter Besh if you couldn’t tell. Then he drew a blurrg, it was honestly a pretty great likeness.
Grogu-parent:
He’s met a few before, so he knows them pretty well.
you:
Wow! When did Grogu meet a blurrg?
Grogu-parent:
When I first met him, we had a friend who kept them. He’s even ridden one before.
you:
You know, his picture from today makes a lot more sense now. He drew a little Grogu on top of the blurrg.
Grogu-parent:
He really likes blurrgs. They seem to like him too, which is good. Otherwise I’d be afraid they were going to eat him.
you:
That IS good because they definitely would.
…
At some point, your messages with Grogu’s dad became less focused on Grogu. You still always made sure to send an update, of course, but you were starting to get to know him, too.
You were trying not to look too hard at how that was making you feel.
You’ve never even seen this man.
You were starting to realize that that might not matter to you.
…
you:
Today we went on a little field trip to the market and Grogu was very well behaved!
Grogu-parent:
Are you sure you’re talking about my kid? He didn’t try to eat every blue treat in sight?
you:
Well, no, he did do that. But then we stopped and talked to the man who makes those blue cookies he likes – his name is Tam – and he showed Grogu how carefully he has to make each one. The way Grogu held the one Tam gave him made me think he was in awe. Anyway after that he was very well-behaved
Grogu-parent:
He does love to learn new things. I bet he loved watching the cookies get made.
you:
He really did! And me, too. I had no idea they were so finicky
Grogu-parent:
Not a baker?
you:
I can make bread ok, I guess. Tam’s got real skill.
Grogu-parent:
I can only make a few dishes but I’m trying to learn more for Grogu.
you:
I bet he loves that! Is it hard to cook on your ship?
Grogu-parent:
I don’t really, no space for it. I mostly rely on rations or quick things until I’m home.
you:
Ok that sounds not so great, so PLEASE promise me you’ll try the new restaurant when you get back. It’s really good and you’ll deserve it after all those rations!
Grogu-parent:
I will.
You tamped down the part of yourself that wondered if you could bring some long-lasting food that Grogu could give to his dad for his next trip. That was probably too much for a person you’d never even met. Right?
…
you:
The kids have been taking turns telling stories about their families, and Grogu told us one in pictures today. It seemed to involve a lot of snow and spiders? Ice spiders? Are those real?
Grogu-parent:
Of course he picked that story.
Grogu-parent:
Yes, it was when we were on the run, like I told you before. My ship was damaged and we had to do an emergency landing on an ice planet.
Grogu-parent:
The local fauna did not appreciate Grogu’s approach to exploring the area and chased us back to the ship.
you:
Holy kriff! We’re they actually as big as a house, or was that his creative license taking over the drawing?
Grogu-parent:
Most of them were small. One of them wasn’t.
you:
That sounds absolutely terrifying
you:
I’m so glad you’re both ok!! How did you get away?
Grogu-parent:
A couple of the New Republic guys from Adelphi had followed us and helped out. But we had to limp over to Trask to get the ship fixed.
you:
You know, that is basically what Grogu drew for us, I think I just couldn’t believe it was all true.
you:
Ok my mind is totally blown. Does this sort of thing happen to you a lot?
Grogu-parent:
More than I would like, yes.
…
you:
Grogu did really well with addition today! We’re learning about adding and subtracting with piles of tokens. He even helped his friend Kiran with a tricky one!
Grogu-parent:
He’s so smart, I’m glad he’s getting to show it.
you:
He really is! And he loves to learn.
Grogu-parent:
I’m glad he’s so good at making friends. I was worried about him. I don’t set the best example.
you:
What do you mean? You have so many friends
Grogu-parent:
I can’t tell if you’re joking.
you:
Not joking! There’s Cara, and Karga, and IG.
Grogu-parent:
3? Is that a lot? I don’t think I’m very good at being friendly.
You hesitated, but it did feel right to call him a friend, at this point.
you:
Well, you’ve also mentioned knowing people on at least two other planets. And you’re friendly with me! That is, if you don’t mind being friends with someone who sometimes forgets to switch out of “talking to kids” voice when talking to adults. And who is usually partially covered in arts and crafts.
Grogu-parent:
I don’t mind. I’d like to be your friend.
You grinned and did not do a little victory dance. Definitely not.
you:
me too!
That one had made you float home.
…
you:
Wait, you really calculate all your jumps yourself?
you:
That’s so impressive! Does it take a long time?
Grogu-parent:
It did when I first started, but I’ve done it so many times it’s not so bad now.
you:
Grogu must get his math skills from you.
Grogu-parent:
So much happened in his life before I found him. Most of the time I feel like I’m learning things from him, and not the other way around.
You felt a little squeeze around your heart at the thought of Grogu without this man, without his dad. You were glad they’d found each other.
you:
That’s adorable, but you should know he shows us things that you taught him all the time.
Grogu-parent:
Uh oh. Like what?
you:
Today he showed us how to tie a cape around your neck so it will stay on. It made me wonder – do you wear a cape?
There was a pause that made you wonder if you shouldn’t have asked. Your message screen moved up as if a new message was about to come in, but then nothing did for another minute.
Grogu-parent:
I do. Sometimes.
You laughed, a bit wonderingly. Who is this man?
…
you:
Today some of the students shared stories or keepsakes from their homeworld or families – this isn’t a mandatory activity, since I know it can be complicated for some. Grogu drew us a picture of IG-11, I think. But he got really excited when Tamar mentioned that the twins have family on Tatooine, of all places.
Grogu-parent:
He’s been there, so that was probably it. I guess I do have another friend there, too. Maybe two.
you:
Ok, I’m starting to think you really undersold your ability to make friends
Grogu-parent:
I wasn’t lying when I said I’m not good at being friendly.
you:
You’re friendly with me! And how else did you get all these friends, then?
Grogu-parent:
I ask myself that all the time.
Grogu-parent:
But it’s easy to be friendly with you.
You blinked and felt your face heat up, suddenly glad you were alone in your classroom.
…
you:
Today in rehearsal Grogu showed us that he memorized his part for the show! It was very cute, I’m sure he’ll do it at home for you.
Grogu-parent:
Oh I’ve seen it. He’s been working hard on it.
you:
Of course he has! I could tell
Grogu-parent:
I’ll be on planet next week, maybe I could watch a rehearsal? If that’s alright. I don’t want to be in the way.
You grinned at your pad, but you also felt suddenly nervous. Were you ready to actually meet him? You didn’t even know his name.
you:
Of course! No, you won’t be in the way, we have plenty of space. It will be so nice to finally meet you!
Grogu-parent:
Ok, good. Yes, it will be.
…
On the day of the rehearsal you walked into the schoolhouse buzzing with nerves and excitement.
You were going to meet him. Grogu’s dad, whose name you still didn’t know, somehow, but whose kind, funny, possibly-edging-towards-flirty messages were starting to take over your thoughts. You didn’t want to get your hopes up, but you couldn’t help it.
You were going to meet him.
You managed to tamp down your excitement as your class arrived and took up all of your attention, but it never quite left your mind. By the time rehearsal rolled around after lunch, the nerves were back.
With 10 minutes to go, you couldn’t stop yourself from glancing at the door what felt like every 5 seconds. Diima’s mom Aminet arrived, and then the twins’ parents. You knew Kiran’s mom was going to try to get away from the shipyard, too.
The door opened again, and you turned to see her slipping inside and smiled. When you looked past her, you were startled to see the Mandalorian you’d seen around town standing in the street, about 15 feet from the school and framed by the door to your classroom.
He was tall, with very shiny armor and very broad shoulders. He was also covered in a slightly intimidating amount of weaponry, though you knew he was Cara’s friend and so you weren’t actually that scared. For a moment you simply stared at him, and even though his face was covered, you had a feeling he was staring back.
Curious, you took a step towards the open doorway, but that seemed to shock him into action. He took a corresponding step back, looked around, and then turned and walked away.
You poked your head out of the door and watched as he turned a corner, heading towards the market.
Weird.
You heard the kids start to make more noise behind you and turned, realizing it was time to begin.
…
Grogu’s dad never did show, but you tried not to let it get you down. At least, not until after the kids had left.
When Cara came to pick up Grogu, she smiled ruefully and shrugged. “I know, he was supposed to come. Sent me a message asking me to swing by, something came up.”
You sighed and shrugged back. “That’s alright. I know he’s busy.”
Your pad stayed stubbornly silent, and you left it at the school to discourage yourself from obsessively checking it all night long.
What happened?
…
Yawning, you dropped into your desk chair the next morning with a sigh. You hadn’t slept well, too worked up over what had – and hadn’t – happened the day before.
But your heart leapt into your throat when you saw you had a message waiting.
Grogu-parent:
I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it. I had to go off planet again, and it was pretty last minute.
Grogu-parent:
I already apologized to Grogu but I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet. I was looking forward to it.
From the timestamps you could see that he’d sent the messages while you were at home, trying to sleep. You bit your lip, wondering what to say back. It helped that he apologized but you still felt disappointed.
you:
That’s ok. I know you’re busy! I would have liked to meet. Maybe next time?
Grogu-parent:
I shouldn’t be too busy for this. Next time, yes.
you:
Deal. I’m counting on you, friend
There was a long pause that made you bite your lip. Was that too much? You started to put the pad down, sighing.
But then another message appeared.
Grogu-parent:
Since we’re friends, you should call me Din.
You froze. Din?
His name.
You started to grin.
you:
I see you, trying to make me forget about missing you yesterday by telling me your name today!
As soon as you send the message you hesitate, wondering if that was too much. But he told me his name! This has to be flirting. We’re flirting. Right?
Grogu-parent:
Missing me?
Kark. Of course he noticed that. Before you could even feel the heat reach your face he sent another message.
Grogu-parent:
I really wanted to be there.
you:
I’m just teasing you, Din. Thank you for telling me
You grinned and changed his contact name.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I missed meeting you, too
…
After Din told you his name, it seemed like your conversations just… flowed. You were opening up to each other in ways you hadn’t quite been able to before and it was making you feel giddy.
On top of that, you were pretty sure he was flirting with you. At least, you hoped so. You couldn’t stop turning the question over in your mind.
It’s not like you could ask anyone. You hadn’t told anyone you were having actual conversations with this man you’d never met – all Cara knew was that you sent him updates.
These weren’t exactly updates.
you:
Anyway, Grogu loved it. Painting with feet is always a popular activity but he was very enthusiastic
Grogu-parent-Din:
That doesn’t surprise me at all. He loves making a mess.
You laughed.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Is this one of those days when you’re covered in arts and crafts?
You blinked. He remembered that? And he was thinking about that? Was he thinking about what you looked like? You hesitated, and then typed your response.
you:
Oh definitely. I’m wearing more paint than clothes at this point.
Kriffing hell. Why did I just say that? You stared down at your pad, incredulous. That had to be too much. You definitely shouldn’t be flirting with a parent like that. And you hadn’t even meant to flirt! You started to type again, to apologize, but he beat you to it.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Sounds like quite a sight.
you:
See, I warned you, being friends with me means being friends with someone who can’t stop kids from covering her in paint.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Never said it would be a bad sight.
You felt a tingle run up your spine. Did he–
Grogu-parent-Din:
You’re not afraid of a mess. Neither am I.
Grogu-parent-Din:
You’re a good teacher.
Kriff, you wished you knew what this man looked like. You said goodbye and stood up to leave, you should not be having thoughts like this in your classroom.
Not afraid of a mess, he’d said.
Kriff.
…
Din kept flirting with you. It had to be flirting, you’d decided. (And you were definitely flirting.) But neither of you had addressed it directly.
You spent your days with the kids, and about half an hour every afternoon flirting with Grogu’s dad. And then the rest of your evening thinking about it.
you:
Grogu drew us a picture of a sort of humanoid-looking figure hanging off the side of a Jawa sandcrawler. It was pretty small in comparison with the sandcrawler, but was that you?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Unfortunately, yes.
you:
How did you end up hanging off the side of a sandcrawler??
Grogu-parent-Din:
The Jawas took apart my ship, stole the parts. I was trying to get them back.
you:
Well I assume you did, since you still have a ship
you:
How did you get them back? Dare I ask?
Grogu-parent-Din:
That’s a long one, but it involved me getting something they wanted from a mudhorn.
you:
A mudhorn?? An actual mudhorn
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’ll tell you the whole story sometime. But yeah, I got the parts back. Got a whole new ship now, though, that one got blown up later.
You realized you were staring down at your pad, mouth dropped open, frozen.
you:
… Din.
you:
Blown up???
Grogu-parent-Din:
You know, when I list it all out like this, it sounds kind of ridiculous.
you:
Kind of?
you:
Does this kind of thing still happen to you?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I won’t lie, sometimes it does. But not nearly as often.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I promise, I’m careful. Much more these days.
you:
You swear?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I do.
you:
Alright.
As you set down your pad, you thought about what you knew about Din. He wore a cape, did evasive maneuvers in his ship, had friends on multiple planets, and sometimes hung off the side of sandcrawlers and fought mudhorns. Someday you’d find out what his job was, and this would all make more sense.
You hoped.
…
At some point after he told you his name, you started taking your pad home.
It made sense, right? It would be rude to cut off the conversation because you had to go home, of all things.
And so like most nights, you found yourself sitting on your bed, smiling down at your pad, talking to Din for what you refused to recognize was over an hour at this point.
Grogu-parent-Din:
You know, I didn’t realize how much calmer my life is now until I started telling you these stories.
you:
I’m just glad your life IS calmer now! Din, sometimes you tell me things and I don’t know how you survived.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Me too. That it’s calmer now, I mean. For Grogu, of course, but I get a lot more sleep these days.
you:
I know you’re busy, but maybe you could stick around for a bit longer next time. Relax a bit? I think you need it
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’m not very good at relaxing.
you:
Maybe you just need someone to show you how it’s done
You were flirting again. You bit your lip.
Grogu-parent-Din:
You volunteering?
You grinned. He was flirting back.
you:
I might be. What do you say?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I say I’d like that.
you:
Yeah?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Yeah, cyar’ika. Show me how to relax.
You let out a noise that you were glad no one was around to hear.
you:
What’s that mean?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’ll tell you when we’re relaxing.
you:
Promise?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Promise.
…
With only a couple of weeks to go before the show, you were starting to feel the pressure, both for the kids and because you were finally going to meet Din.
He would have to come to the show, right? He said he would. You were pretty sure your distraction was noticeable – Cara had almost called you out on it multiple times. She’d taken to squinting at you and smirking knowingly when she caught you checking your pad.
A few nights after the promise to let you show him how to relax – which you couldn’t let yourself dwell on, not if you wanted to get anything done – he told you about his ship getting blown up.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’ve got a new one, of course, but I do miss that ship.
you:
Of course you do! How long did you have it?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Almost 15 years.
Your jaw dropped. He’d lost his home of 15 years?
you:
Din, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.
There was a long pause that made you worry you’d somehow overstepped. You started to type, to backtrack, when his response appeared.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Thank you.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I think people expected me to just get a new ship, but for a while I didn’t want to.
you:
Of course not!
you:
ugh, who said that? Let me talk to them
Grogu-parent-Din:
It’s ok, cyar’ika. No need.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Of course you can make me smile when I’m thinking about this.
You sucked in a sharp breath and tucked yourself into a ball around your pad on your bed. He smiled.
you:
I made you smile?
Grogu-parent-Din:
You always make me smile.
Your own smile felt so big it was taking over your face.
you:
You make me smile too, you know. Even when we’re not talking, you make me smile
Grogu-parent-Din:
Yeah? How do I manage that?
you:
I may or may not think about you, you know… sometimes.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I think about you all the time.
You felt your entire body get hot and tingly and gasped.
you:
Din!
Grogu-parent-Din:
I do. Lately you’re all I want to think about.
you:
Din. Are you flirting with me?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’ve been flirting with you, cyar’ika. Nice of you to finally notice.
You wanted to hide your face, even though you were the only person in your apartment. You settled for kicking your feet like a weirdo.
you:
I hoped you were. I’ve been flirting too, you know
Grogu-parent-Din:
Oh I know.
you:
Din!
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’m sorry I couldn’t come see you last time. I wish I had.
you:
Well, the show is next week! so soon! We can actually meet
you:
It’s not your fault you had to work.
There was another long pause, and you furrowed your brow, but it couldn’t quite wipe the smile off your face.
Grogu-parent-Din:
So I might have lied about that.
you:
About what?
You frowned down at the pad.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I didn’t have to go off planet suddenly.
you:
What?? Din what are you talking about
You didn’t like the swooping sensation in your stomach. So then why had he left?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I did come by the school that day, but I couldn’t go in.
you:
Why not??
Grogu-parent-Din:
I saw you, and I know, I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair that I’ve seen you. But I saw you, and you were smiling at someone, and you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, cyar’ika.
Your mouth dropped open. What?
Grogu-parent-Din: I froze. I got tongue-tied, I guess. All of a sudden I just knew, but I wasn’t prepared. And then I ran like a coward. I’m sorry.
You handled your pad in shaking hands, making a few more typos than you usually did.
you:
Din, are you tellign me that you thought I was so beautiful you ran awaY?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Basically, yes. I know, I know, Cara already read me the riot act. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t run next week.
you:
You better not!! I can’t believe you’ve seen me and I’ve never seen you.
He ran away because you were too beautiful? What the kark? This sort of thing did not happen to you.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I promise I will be there next week and I won’t run away.
you:
Good.
you:
No one’s ever thought I was so beautiful they RAN before, you know
Grogu-parent-Din:
That you know of.
you:
You know, that’s a good point
…
By the day of the show, you were a wreck.
You and Din talked every night, and it was wonderful, but it felt like a build up to something that was going to change your life. You didn’t want to put that much pressure on a simple meeting, but you couldn’t stop yourself.
You liked him so, so much.
And on top of that, the kids were excited and nervous and bouncing off the walls. Literally, in some cases. You wanted things to go well for them, and you wanted things to go well for you.
It was a lot.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Can I come by early? Or should I wait until after?
you:
PLEASE come early. I can’t wait through the whole show to meet you, I’ll be too nervous! The kids are going home for a couple of hours after school, and then they have to be back for the show
Grogu-parent-Din:
Cara is taking Grogu with Oora for a final practice together and I said I’d meet her there. So I can come as early as you’d like. You tell me when to be there and I will.
Your hands were shaking again.
you:
How about half an hour before the kids are due back? Gives me time to have emotions but not to get TOO distracted.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Am I going to give you emotions, cyar’ika?
you:
You know you are, Din.
…
Somehow, the kids had been gone for an hour and you’d managed to finish setting everything up in the small auditorium. The little stage was ready and the decorations were perfect.
And now all you had to do was wait for Din.
It was nerve-wracking. You were doing your best not to watch the clock, but with fifteen minutes to go before he was supposed to arrive, you found yourself pacing around your classroom, talking to yourself.
You were debating running to the corner and back just to work out some energy when someone cleared their throat behind you.
You whirled, heart in your throat, and were surprised to find the Mandalorian you’d seen around town standing in the doorway of your classroom.
“Oh! Hello, Mando.” You took a deep breath and resisted the urge to twist your hands together. “Can I help you with something?”
He didn’t answer right away. He looked around the room, and you took a moment to study him. His armor was very shiny, and it fit him very well. He was a very broad man, you realized. And he had fewer weapons on him than the last time you saw him, though of course he still had some.
He took a step inside and his cape swayed behind him.
“You know,” he said, and his voice was deep and warm. You thought he might be smiling, but wondered how you could tell. “I know it’s not realistic, but I really did picture you more covered in paint.”
You froze and felt a tingling sensation flow from your feet to your head, making you suddenly lightheaded. It can’t be.
“...Din?” you breathed, stunned. Your eyes traveled over the length of him again, and then suddenly caught on the cape.
He stepped forward again and then he was right in front of you. You couldn’t stop gaping at him.
“Hi, cyar’ika,” he said, voice deep. He reached out and lightly brushed his fingers against yours.
Your body finally kicked back into gear at his touch and you shoved him lightly in his armored chest. “Din!” You put both of your palms on his chest and marveled at the fact that he was here, in front of you, solidly physical and real. “You’re here!”
He chuckled, and you marveled again at being able to hear him. “I promised I would be.”
You felt yourself start to smile and noticed his helmet dipped. “I can’t believe you’re here.” You ran your hands down his chest and then froze. “Oh, I’m sorry, I just started touching you, I didn’t even ask–” You started to pull your hands away but he caught them and placed your hands back on his chest.
“You can touch me,” he murmured.
“Yeah?” you asked, grinning.
He nodded.
“I may have thought about it… a lot,” you confessed, stepping even closer.
His hands released yours and came to rest on your hips. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
For a moment you just grinned at him, a bit stunned.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come in last time,” he said, and he did sound sorry. “I wanted to, I just…”
Now that you had him in front of you, real and solid and a man, it felt suddenly easier to tease him. “But you were overwhelmed by my beauty, huh?”
You gasped when he tugged you closer and squeezed your hips. “I was,” he agreed. “You are so kriffing beautiful, cyar’ika.”
You felt yourself begin to melt, but then remembered. “Wait,” you said, looking up at his visor. “You promised – what does that mean?”
He leaned down and nudged your forehead gently with his helmet.
“Sweetheart.”
…
The kids’ show went off without a hitch. Grogu was overjoyed to have his dad in the audience and played the drums with more enthusiasm than you had ever seen him have in practice. All of the kids did well, and their parents kept telling you how impressed they were as they headed home.
As soon as the area around you cleared, after the show, Din appeared with Grogu in his arms.
“Grogu, you did so well!” You reached your fist out to bump his little one and he cheered. “I’m so proud of you and I know your dad is, too.” You looked up at Din, who nodded.
“I am,” he agreed, “I told him.” He looked down at Grogu. “Right, bud?” Grogu made a little noise that definitely sounded like agreement.
“Are you heading out?” You asked, smiling at Cara when she came to join your group.
Din nodded. “Taking this one home. But, I wanted to ask – are you free tomorrow?”
You grinned. “I am.”
He took a step closer and Grogu made a little bah noise. “I’ll message you. But you have plans.”
You could feel Cara smirking at the two of you but you couldn’t look away from Din. “I do?”
Din leaned a little bit closer. “You do now.”
You said goodnight, but the warmth from finally meeting Din and knowing you had plans later carried you home.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Meet me at the market after lunch?
you:
Yes! What are our plans?
Smiling, you made an update to his contact.
Din:
I’m ready to learn how to relax.
…
You stood by the large tree at the edge of the market, nervous but excited. You’d spent too much time picking out your clothes and now that you were there, you couldn’t stop remembering how it had felt to finally touch him.
“You look beautiful,” a warm voice said from behind you, and you spun around.
“Din!” You grinned. He was very shiny in the midday sun.
He stepped closer and one of his hands came up to cup your upper arm. His gloved thumb moved back and forth across your skin in a light caress. “Hi, cyar’ika.”
You felt your face heat at the endearment, now that you knew what it meant.
“I’m ready to relax,” he said, voice teasing.
You laughed and leaned a bit closer. He was right there, in front of you, and you felt like you were floating. “Alright. I say we walk through the market and stock up on some snacks, and then we’ll try out some aimless relaxation. Preferably on a couch or other soft surface. And maybe we’ll listen to some music.”
Din nodded along to your instructions, turning to follow as you walked towards the market. He slid his hand down your arm and slipped it into yours. “Does your place have a couch?”
You looked at him. “Din, would you like to come back to my place? Do you have time?”
He leaned forward and nudged his helmet against your forehead again. “Cara’s got Grogu. I’m all yours. And yes, I do want to.”
“Great,” you said, smiling, and started to point out your favorite stalls. You collected some fruit and cookies from Tam and some other snacks as you walked.
Din took each item and stored them in a bag as you collected them. “Are these the cookies Grogu learned how to make?”
You nodded. “And he still loves them.”
Din laughed. “Of course he does.”
Once you had a nice assortment, you turned in the direction of your apartment. As you walked, you marveled at how easy, how right it felt, to spend time together in person.
“Is it nice, being back on planet?” you asked.
He nodded once. “Food’s much better,” he said, and you smiled. “So’s the company.”
You turned onto the small street with the door to your apartment. “Flatterer.”
As you stepped up to your door to unlock it, Din stepped up close behind you. So close you could feel the heat of his body. “It’s the truth, cyar’ika.”
You felt a shiver travel up your back as you finally unlocked the door, followed by the tips of his fingers as they followed the shiver. “Well, here it is.” You waved your arm at your apartment and stood to the side to welcome Din inside.
He looked around, and suddenly you felt nervous. Before you could get too worked up, though, he said, “I like it. It’s very warm, like you.”
You blinked. “What do you mean?”
Din stepped closer and nudged your forehead with his helmet again. “You’re easy to talk to, and so warm in all of our conversations. It feels like that.”
You leaned closer. “Does this mean something?” You nudged his helmet.
He hummed. “It’s a Keldabe kiss. It’s how we kiss without removing our helmets.”
“Din!” You exclaimed, leaning back to look at him. “You kissed me when we met yesterday?”
“Couldn’t help it.” He leaned in to do it again and you grinned. “I’ve been wanting to for weeks.”
You reached down and took his hand, tugging him towards the living area. “Come on. We have some relaxing to do.”
To your surprise, rather than joining you on the couch, he started stripping off his armor and placing the pieces carefully on your dining table. He must have noticed your surprise because he explained, “Relaxing, right? This will be more comfortable.”
You watched carefully, taking note of each piece. When he was finished he was just wearing his flight suit and helmet. You couldn’t help but ask, “not the helmet?”
Din seemed to tense for a moment, but then he relaxed. “No. I… my creed. I can’t take it off in front of other living things.”
You tilted your head, considering this information. “Not even Grogu?”
He shook his head. “Grogu is clan, he’s my son. Our clan can see our faces.”
That made sense. “Alright. Want to sit?”
You gestured at the seat next to you and smiled as he sat.
“You don’t…” he trailed off and turned in his seat to look at you head on. “You don’t have more questions?”
You turned sideways and leaned against the back of your couch, propping your chin on your hand. Your knee brushed against his leg. “No, not right now. I mean, I want to know more, but mostly I figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready, right? If it’s stuff I can know.” You reached over and slipped your hand into his and squeezed. “I don’t want to push you, and I like the way we’ve been talking.”
He leaned forward and squeezed your hand. “I like it too.” His voice was suddenly much deeper. “Thank you.”
You smiled. “Are you thanking me for being patient?”
Din nodded. “I am. So what’s the next step in our day of relaxation?”
You gestured at your sound system. “Let me put on something soothing.” You grabbed your data pad from the coffee table and set it up. “There.”
Soft music started to play and you eased back into your seat.
“Do we just sit here?” Din asked, sounding a little baffled.
It made you smile. “Yes, but we can talk. Or you can always lie down, that’s much more relaxing.” You grabbed a pillow and placed it against your thigh. “Want to try it?”
“Here?” He pointed at the couch and you nodded. He hesitated and then took off his boots. He slowly leaned down until he was lying back against the pillow. As soon as his back was flat he groaned. “Ok, maybe I needed this.”
“Maybe you need a back rub,” you replied.
Din laughed. “Probably. I don’t know if I’ve ever had one. You offering?”
“Never?” You shook your head, incredulous. “Ask me again later. We’re relaxing right now.” You fell into an easy conversation about your week and you finally found out more about his job. As you talked, you leaned further into the couch and started idly tracing shapes along his chest with your fingertips without even realizing you were doing it.
“A bounty hunter makes so much more sense than what I was thinking,” you remarked as he finished telling you about his last job. “All of your ridiculous stories make sense now.”
Din laughed again and you realized you wanted to hear that sound more. Every day, if you could.
“That’s good. I realized in retrospect how it all sounds when I was talking to you.” He reached up and laced his fingers through yours, stilling your hand against his chest. “It doesn’t scare you?”
You looked down at his visor and smiled. “I was already worrying about you, but I know you’re capable. I could tell from your stories. If anything, it’s reassuring — you must be good at it, to be doing it this long.” You sighed. “But I probably will still worry, yes.”
Din hummed and you felt certain he was looking at you, too, even though you couldn’t tell through the dark glass. “Cara offered me more work around here. I think I’ll take her up on it. I’ll still go off planet sometimes, but not as much.”
“Well,” you said, smiling, “I won’t pretend I don’t like the sound of that. But you don’t have to do that just because we’re, um…” you trailed off as you realized you didn’t exactly know what you were.
“Relaxing together?” He teased, and you laughed. “It would be better for Grogu, that’s important. But I do want to be here more so I can see you more. Not only send messages.” He squeezed your hand. “I like you.”
You felt something warm settle inside you at his words and you were certain it showed on your face. “I like you too, Din.”
You told him more stories about the kids’ antics during the week, but you realized as you finished a story about Kiran trying to adopt a lizard from the lava flats as the class pet — and Grogu wanting to eat it, instead — that Din had fallen asleep.
You smiled and curled your body more around his helmet and the pillow in your lap. The fact that he felt comfortable enough to fall asleep with you filled you with warmth. You took the opportunity to study this man who had somehow swept you off your feet through pad messages. Even without seeing his face, you could tell he was attractive – his body was toned and strong, but not thin. You could tell he was used to very physical work. You traced his shoulders and arms and chest with your eyes and bit your lip – he was much more exposed like this, without armor. You could see the outline of his body and it made you press your thighs together under the pillow.
Get it together, you told yourself sternly. We are relaxing, not ogling.
He stirred, suddenly, and you couldn’t help but soothe him. “Shhh, go back to sleep,” you murmured. “Relax.” He seemed to settle again at the sound of your voice, so you kept talking. “I’m really glad you feel comfortable here, Din. With me.” You hummed along to the music softly for a moment. “You really are very handsome. I can tell. And kriff, these shoulders. And your hands.” You laughed softly at yourself. “I already liked you, you know? Without seeing you. But now…” you trailed off, suddenly embarrassed by what you were admitting even though he was asleep.
At least, you thought he was asleep.
He startled you by responding, suddenly, and tightened his hold on your hand on his chest to keep you from pulling away. “Now?” he asked, voice scratchy and deep. “Now what, cyar’ika?”
You felt your face heat up. “How much of that did you hear?”
Din hummed and settled more into the couch. “Something about my shoulders.”
“Kriff,” you said, laughing. “That’s so embarrassing.”
He shook his head. “No, I liked it.” He squeezed your hand. “What were you going to say? But now…” he prompted you, and you could hear the smile in his voice.
“Now I like you and I can’t stop looking at you, I guess.”
He looked at you for a moment, helmet tilted back. Then he started to sit up. You made a noise in complaint but he settled in much closer to you than before with his arm over the back of the couch. You were touching from shoulder to knee. Your breath caught.
“Is that really what you were going to say, mesh’la?” He leaned in towards you and pressed his helmet to your forehead again.
You shivered. “Din—“ you started, not sure what you were going to say.
“Tell me,” he urged you softly. He dropped his arm over your shoulders and suddenly you were totally wrapped up in his warmth.
“I already liked you,” you repeated, leaning into his embrace. “And I already wanted you. Before I’d even seen you.” You stumbled over your words but felt a surge of confidence when you felt him draw in a sharp breath. “And now I can’t stop looking at you. Because you already had me with your flirting.” You reached out and placed your hand on his thigh and squeezed, and you couldn’t take it anymore. “But Din, I am so turned on. I know we just met, officially, but—“
“Cyar’ika,” he murmured, wrapping his free arm around your waist. “I’ve been hard since you told me to lie down in your lap.”
Your gaze shot down to his pants, but you couldn’t see any proof.
“These pants don’t show it. But believe me,” he lifted your hand from his thigh and placed it over his hard length. Your eyes widened. “I want you. Badly.”
“Din,” you breathed. You looked back up at him and squeezed his cock, and watched a shiver travel across his shoulders.
“How dark is your bedroom?” He asked suddenly.
“Very,” you said, a bit confused. “I have those curtains that block out the light, helps me sleep.”
“Perfect,” he replied, and tugged you up off the couch. “Come here, mesh’la.” He grabbed something from the pile of his things on the coffee table and led you towards your bedroom after you pointed it out.
Once inside, he moved towards the windows and closed the curtains. The room immediately darkened. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking around the room, and nodded.
“Good,” he said, and you stepped closer.
“Good for what?”
Din held up his hand and you realized he was holding a length of black cloth. “It’s dark enough in here. But just to be sure… if you, would you wear this?”
Suddenly you realized the reason why he was doing all of this and your entire body lit up in response. “Your helmet?” you asked, eyes wide.
He nodded. “Will you?” He held what you recognized as a blindfold towards you, and you nodded before he’d even finished speaking.
“Of course,” you said, stepping closer. “Din, I promise, I won’t look. But yes, I’ll wear it.”
You saw some of the tension fade from his shoulders and smiled. He took you gently by the shoulders and turned you around. “Thank you,” he murmured as he lifted the blindfold into place. He tied it tightly, but not too tight. “How’s that?” You felt air on your face and wondered if he was waving his hand in front of your eyes.
“I can’t see anything,” you confirmed. You reached back, trying to find him, and he caught your hand. “I promise.”
He turned you back around slowly and suddenly you were pressed up against his chest with his hand on your back. “I believe you. I trust you.”
You thought of the way he had fallen asleep so easily in your presence and smiled. “What now, Din?”
You heard a hissing noise and then a large thump and realized he must have removed his helmet. The sound of his voice confirmed it. “Now, cyar’ika,” he said, and you shivered when you felt his breath on your face, “I’m going to kiss you.”
You opened your mouth to respond, yes, and maybe please, but you never got the words out. His lips met yours and every other thought flew out of your head. You could tell he was somewhat new to this – that wasn’t surprising, considering what he’d told you about his helmet – but he learned quickly and you barely noticed any awkwardness. You lost yourself in his kiss, in his arms, in the darkness of your blindfold.
When his tongue traced along your bottom lip, you moaned, and his answering moan made you feel lightheaded. He broke away suddenly to press kisses down your neck and you sighed. “Din,” you said, and realized your hands were tangled in his hair. His hair. “That feels so good.”
“Does it?” He murmured, and you could hear his smirk. “Tell me, cyar’ika.”
You pushed yourself closer until you were pressed fully against him. “Yes, Din. Can we– can you–” you weren’t sure what you were asking, and he interrupted you with a nibble at your neck.
“We can do whatever you want,” he promised, voice low. “What do you want, mesh’la?”
That word, the new one, finally snagged at your attention. “What’s that mean?”
He lifted his head and pressed his smile to your cheek. It made you smile back. “That’s what you want? To know that?”
You nodded. “Please. And then I want you to make me come.”
Din growled and tugged you in the direction you were pretty sure led to your bed. “Beautiful,” he said, voice intent. “It means beautiful. Because you are.” He tugged you downwards and you realized he was sitting on the bed. You settled into position straddling his lap and ground your hips down. His answering moan was very gratifying. “Let me make you feel good.”
He had one arm around your back, and you felt his other hand trail along the waistband of your pants. You tilted your hips forward to encourage him. He undid them deftly and you sighed when his large fingers slid inside your underwear.
He teased you, and you knew he could feel how wet you were without even pressing inside.
“Did I turn you on, cyar’ika?” He pressed his lips to your ear and you shivered at how deep his voice was. “Is this for me?”
“Yes, Din,” you said, and before you could say anything else his fingers parted your folds and slipped inside.
“So wet,” he said, voice awed. “And all for me, hmm?” His fingers found your clit and circled it and you gasped. He swallowed it with a kiss.
You broke away on a gasp when he replaced his fingers with his thumb and trailed through your wetness to circle your entrance with his fingertips. “Din,” you said, pleading.
“Is this what you want, mesh’la?” You nodded and he nipped at your neck below your ear. “I thought about this,” he said, lips brushing against your ear as he slid his fingers inside you. “Thought about this when you talked to me, when I pictured you covered in more paint than clothes.” He curled his fingers forward and you moaned. “Thought about this when you made me smile, when you said you think about me.”
“I do, Din,” you said, voice unsteady. You wrapped your arms around his neck and ground down on his fingers. “I thought about this, too.”
“Yeah?” he asked, and you nodded against his neck. “My fingers?”
“Yes,” you said, building up a rhythm with your hips. “And your cock. And your tongue.”
Din let out a noise you could only classify as a whine and it sent sparks shooting up your spine. “You want that? My mouth on you?” You nodded, almost frantically, and he shuddered. “I want that too. You have no idea how much.”
You could feel it building inside of you and you buried your face in his shoulder. You marveled at feeling so much of his skin as you did.
“I think you’re close, cyar’ika,” he murmured between kisses on your neck. “You’re squeezing me.” His thumb started to move faster and you knew you were about to fall over the edge. “Come for me, beautiful. I want to feel it.”
You did, with his fingers thrusting in and out of you and his arm holding you tight in his lap. You cried out his name as you fell and shuddered at the sparks flying through your body. The pleasure washed over you like a wave, head to toe.
When you came back to yourself, you were on your back on the mattress with Din’s body pressing you down.
“You with me?” he asked, and you nodded. “Good. Cyar’ika, I want to fuck you.”
Your head swam at his words, and you nodded again.
“Let me hear your voice,” he murmured, and kissed you. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to fuck me, Din,” you said, and felt it when he smiled into a kiss. “I’ve wanted it, badly.”
“Me too,” he promised, and lifted off of you to remove his flight suit. When he pressed back down and you felt his skin on yours your eyes rolled back in your head.
“Dank farrik,” he said through gritted teeth. “You’re so soft.” He rubbed his body against yours and you gasped at the sensations he sent through you. His hard cock was trapped between your stomachs and you lifted your hips, wrapping your legs around him, trying to change the angle.
Din tilted his hips and suddenly his cock was nestled against you, and you gasped. “You feel so kriffing good,” he moaned, and you nodded.
“You too, Din,” you cut off on a gasp when the head of his cock nudged your clit. “Please fuck me.”
Din huffed a laugh, and murmured, “so polite.”
You smacked him lightly on his very shapely ass, and then paused to fondle it. He laughed again and you grinned into his neck. “Is there something wrong with polite?”
Din nudged at your cheek until you turned into a searing kiss. “No,” he finally replied, lifting his hips and reaching down to move his cock right where you wanted it. “Just makes me want to give you what you want. Even more.” The head of his cock pressed against your entrance and you sighed. “I’ve thought about this so many times, almost since the beginning.” He started pushing inside and you tangled your fingers in his hair. You were panting. He was big. “And then I saw you, and you were flirting with me, and I couldn’t,” he pulled out slightly and thrust forward again, “stop,” he did it again, farther in this time, “thinking about it.” He pushed steadily forward until his hips met yours and you both moaned.
“Me neither,” you said, turning your head and nipping at his ear. He moaned again. “So much, Din.” He shuddered as he pulled out and thrust forward again, and you lifted your hips to meet him.
He found a steady rhythm that sent sparks up and down your spine, building you up and sending you closer and closer to the edge. Your mind was spinning with pleasure and a bit of awe that you were finally there, that Din was inside you, like you’d been hoping for. Like you’d been craving.
Din leaned his weight onto his left arm and snaked his right hand between your bodies until he found your clit. When he circled it with his finger you almost sobbed.
“I want to feel you come again, mesh’la.” Din’s voice was rough with his own pleasure and it made yours shoot higher. “Squeeze me tight. Dank farrik.” His chest heaved when you did as he asked and squeezed. “Let me feel it. Come for me.”
He thrust forward again and circled your clit just right and you fell off the edge again, but this time it felt like you were flying. You spiraled upwards on the wave of pleasure and when it crashed down again it flowed over your entire body, leaving tingles in its wake.
You squeezed his cock and he moaned into your ear. “You feel so good when you come, kriff, your pussy feels so good.” His hips thrust forward again, losing their rhythm, and you knew he was close. You tugged at his hair until your mouth hovered over his.
“Din,” you said, and kissed him. “Come inside me.”
He moaned and he did, thrusting twice more before stilling and moaning your name. When he collapsed on top of you you wrapped your arms and legs around him and sighed.
“Kark,” he murmured, pressing soft kisses along your neck and throat. “That was so good.”
You laughed, and gasped when he laughed too and you felt it against your chest. “It was, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “You know, I like this relaxation thing.” You laughed and squeezed him. He grunted. “I have another confession.”
“Uh oh,” you teased. “Is this the last one?”
Din pushed himself up until he was leaning on his left arm again and kissed you softly. “I promise. After this it’s just getting to know each other more.” He kissed you again. “But I need to tell you. I didn’t just run because you’re beautiful.” another kiss. “Even though you are and that was part of it.” A longer kiss this time followed by a nip to your bottom lip. You smiled. “But I also saw you, and all of these feelings I’d been putting off and denying came rushing up and I couldn’t deny them anymore. I think I was afraid, since we’d never met, never seen each other.”
You nodded. You knew that feeling.
“It was all real, suddenly, and I wasn’t ready for that.” He nudged at your nose with his and hummed.
You kissed him. “But you’re ready now?”
“I am,” he said, voice firm and warm. “I want you. I want this. I want to figure it out.”
Din Djarin x f!reader | 11.4k | 18+ | main masterlist | ao3
summary: After your first few weeks as Nevarro's new schoolteacher, there was only one student's parent that you hadn't yet met. When you decided to send Grogu's dad a message, though, you never would have expected where it led.
a/n: Din's back! This is my fic for @penvisions' give a little love challenge. My prompt was mistaken identity. 👀 Once I figured out where I wanted to take that, this was pretty fun to write! Thank you @katareyoudrilling for being the best beta and helping me whip this one into shape. Also, I did attempt to research how messaging would work in Star Wars, got conflicting results, and then gave up and decided I can do what I want. So consider this almost canon-aligned as far as messaging goes. lol
tags/warnings: epistolary, fluff, space texting, reader is an elementary-ish teacher with no physical description, a lot of school-talk, elementary school student shenanigans, flirting, teasing, pet names (cyar'ika/sweetheart, mesh'la/beautiful), mistaken identity, misunderstandings, Star Wars cursing (kriff, kark, dank farrik), a bit of ogling, smut (kissing, fondling, grinding, fingering (f!receiving), p-in-v sex, creampie)
...
You haven’t been on Nevarro long, but you’ve learned a lot about your new students already. When Karga recruited you, all the way from the Mid Rim, he’d told you it was a small but growing city with a small but growing school. They finally had enough students to need to split them up into multiple classrooms, and that was where you came in. You’d taken the job because you liked the idea of helping to build something, and because you were ready for something new.
You were taking over the room with younger children, which was your preference. And so far they’d been wonderful to work with – they were all so excited by new things, so happy to learn. Each day was a joy as you watched them grow.
As you got to know the kids, you also got to know the parents. Teaching the youngest children made you more well-known around town, and it had been easier to settle in than you expected. There was Diima, who was learning how to braid her own hair and had been teaching some of the other kids – her moms had invited you over for dinner and you thought you might end up being friends. Oora, the young Twi’lek who loved spaceships of all kinds – his father ran the food stall in the market that always had the best fruit. And Tamar and Ilana, the twins, who very intentionally never dressed alike – their parents ran the med clinic.
And then there was Grogu, your smallest student. You’d never met his dad, though you knew of him from Karga and Cara. But so far you’d only learned that Grogu missed him and that he was off planet a lot. He was never there to pick up Grogu, at least not in the few weeks you’d been on Nevarro so far. It was always Cara or IG-11, or a few times even Karga himself.
As you waved goodbye to the last of the kids for the day – Kiran, a young Mirialan whose mother was a mechanic at the shipyard – you collapsed into your desk chair with a sigh. Cara had come by to pick up Grogu again, but you’d been hoping to finally meet his elusive father. The kids would have a show at the end of the term to sing some songs and show off what they’d been learning. So far you’d been able to invite all of the parents personally when they came to pick the kids up. You sighed again and tapped your data pad – you’d just have to send him a message.
You’d sent him a message only once before, when you first started, just to introduce yourself. You hadn’t gotten a message back.
You stared down at the pad for a moment, biting your lip. Just be straightforward, to the point. You nodded and scrolled down to the contact for Grogu-parent. You saved all of your students’ parents’ contact info that way, though you added their names to the end if you knew them.
you:
Hello! This is Grogu’s teacher, I sent you a message a couple of weeks ago when I started. I just wanted to invite you to our end of term show and to let you know that his schedule will be changing a bit, as we’ll be adding a rehearsal once a week. His class will be singing some songs and showing off what they have learned this term. They’re all very excited about it!
You sent another message with the date and time of the show and wondered how you should sign off.
you:
I will also let Cara and IG know. Please let me know if you have any questions and if you’ll be able to attend. Thank you!
Once the message was sent, you leaned back in your chair, hoping you’d hear back from him this time.
You were startled when your pad chimed before you’d even settled into your chair.
Grogu-parent:
Hello. Thank you. I will be there.
You grinned. A response! And so quickly! You needed to say something back, to make it clear this was a way he could get in contact with you if needed.
you:
Great! I know that will make Grogu very happy. He has really enjoyed learning to follow along to the notes of the songs and he is becoming a very enthusiastic assistant on the drums.
There was a pause, and you wondered if you had said too much, or if he’d gone quiet again. But then your pad chimed.
Grogu-parent:
Something he can hit that makes noise? Sounds perfect for him.
You laughed. If someone had told you that morning that you’d actually talk to Grogu’s elusive dad and that he would make you laugh, you weren’t sure you’d have believed them.
Grogu-parent:
Thank you for telling me. I know I miss a lot when I’m off planet.
Suddenly, you realized you hadn’t thought of it that way and wanted to kick yourself. Of course his dad would be sad to miss hearing about what Grogu did in school, and all the little ways he was growing and learning. Your heart squeezed in sympathy.
you:
Would you like me to send you more updates? I would be happy to do it. I usually share them with parents at the end of the day. I’m sorry I didn’t think to send them to you this way instead.
Grogu-parent:
That’s alright. I know I never replied to your message, I didn’t get it until days later. Yes, please send me updates. I might not be able to reply right away but I will be happy to get them.
You tilted your head as you read his message, wondering what sort of work he was doing.
you:
Oh that’s fine! I’ll start sending you updates, but no pressure to respond to them. I understand you must be busy.
Grogu-parent:
I’ll respond when I can. Thank you again.
You smiled as you set your pad down and stood from your desk. Finally, you thought. You’d made contact with Grogu’s dad! You walked out of the schoolhouse with a spring in your step.
As you made your way to the market to pick up something for dinner, you couldn’t wipe the smile from your face. You were happy you’d moved to Nevarro, you realized – you liked the people and the growing feeling of community that you had been welcomed to join almost immediately. There were beings of all kinds in the little city, from all over the galaxy – you’d met a fellow newcomer just the day before, a friend of Cara’s from the resistance who was good with plants. You’d met Carm, a Bothan, who had a knack for fixing droids. You were pretty sure you’d even spotted a Mando, once or twice, and Diima’s mom had told you about the family that had just moved in next door to them and was planning to open a restaurant.
It was a nice place to live. You were happy you’d decided to take the offer.
…
The next day, when Cara picked up Grogu, you let her know that you’d also invited his dad to the show. Grogu chirped and smiled at you, and you smiled back.
“That’s right, bud, your dad is coming!”
Cara grinned. “See? I told you he would, squirt.” Grogu made a noise like a cheer and waved his little arms and you both laughed. “See you tomorrow, teach!” Cara tossed Grogu lightly in the air as she turned and he squealed.
You smiled, shaking your head at their antics as you made your way back to your desk. You knew just what you wanted to tell his dad.
you:
Today Grogu kept working really hard on trying to write his name! The Aurebesh characters are still new and tricky for them, but he honestly does pretty well when we can draw them in the sand with his claws. He also shared his snack with his friend Oora, which was sweet.
You didn’t get an answer right away, and you tried not to be disappointed. It had been nice to talk to him the day before, but you knew he was busy with work, whatever work he did. You packed up your bag and hefted it onto your shoulder.
When your pad chimed, you dropped it unceremoniously back onto your chair.
Grogu-parent:
Are you sure you’re talking about my kid? He’s not usually one to share food.
You laughed, but before you could reply your pad chimed again.
Grogu-parent:
That’s great about his name. I know he knows so much, even though he seems so little.
You nodded as you typed your response.
you:
He does! I can tell. Sometimes he gets a little bit frustrated when he can’t communicate the way he wants. But the kids are all great with each other and they really listen to him, even without words.
Grogu-parent:
I’m glad to hear it. I worried he would be too little for the class, even though technically he’s older than I am.
You laughed and tucked away that little tidbit of information.
you:
I know he’s technically the oldest, but he’s also not the youngest, in terms of development. They’re a good group and they get along well.
Grogu-parent:
He is an old baby, isn’t he? Thank you. Again.
You laughed and found yourself smiling again as you walked to the market. You wished you knew his name, but it felt awkward at this point to ask. You supposed he’d have to stay “Grogu-parent” in your pad. For now.
…
After that, you fell into a bit of a rhythm.
He wasn’t always able to reply immediately – sometimes you came in to work in the morning to find his response waiting for you, and you didn’t let yourself wait for more than a few minutes at the end of the day.
But he always replied.
You found him easy to talk to, with a clear sense of humor and love for his son that you could feel through the messages. It infused every word he sent you, and it made you smile softly whenever you thought about it. You still felt bad that you hadn’t thought of this arrangement earlier. But you tried to make up for it with more details now.
…
you:
Grogu led the other kids in a game today at recess. It seemed to be a mixture of tag and catch, and I’m not sure if he made it up, but they had fun. And I was proud of him for teaching them without words!
Grogu-parent:
Sounds like the game he learned from a friend’s kid on Sorgan. I’ve seen him play it before, but I’ve never figured out the rules. I’m not convinced they don’t make them up each time they play it.
…
you:
Grogu drew you a picture today! From what I could tell it’s your house, he was very proud of it.
Grogu-parent:
I can’t wait to see it. He has a collection growing at home on the walls of his room.
…
you:
Today we learned about hyperspace, and Grogu got really excited when I showed some footage of what it looks like to travel in hyperspace from the cockpit. He’s not the only kid who’s been in space, of course, and they all had a lot of fun sharing about their experiences. He drew us a picture of what I think is your ship, and the other kids loved it.
Grogu-parent:
He does love hyperspace. I think it’s the colors. That kid loves to fly, even to go upside down. Never seen someone treat an evasive maneuver like a thrill ride like that.
you:
Evasive maneuvers, huh? Sounds intense!
Grogu-parent:
It’s been a while, but when he first came to me we had to run from some people who were looking for him. And me. Took us around the galaxy for a bit.
You remembered the school’s security measures that Karga and Cara had told you about and furrowed your brow.
you:
Is everything ok now? Is he in any danger? Are you?
Grogu-parent:
We took care of it. But that’s why we have the alerts in place at the school. Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you.
you:
I’m not worried about me! But Grogu and the rest of the kids! I can’t believe anyone would want to hurt them.
You could believe it, though. You just didn’t want to.
you:
I mean, I know the Galaxy can be like that. I just wish it wasn’t.
Grogu-parent:
I know what you mean. I wish that, too.
You didn’t realize until later while you were eating dinner that he’d never answered your question about his own safety, and it made you worry. You didn’t even know what his job was, you realized, and felt the worry settle in your chest.
…
you:
Grogu made you another picture but this time he refused to use any color except blue. I’m not sure what it is, but he was very insistent about it! Cara took it home for you.
Grogu-parent:
I’m not surprised, he loves blue things. I can’t wait to see it.
…
you:
Today Oora gave a demonstration of a traditional dance he learned from his family, and surprised us all – apparently Grogu had been helping him practice and knew the dance, too! It was very sweet of him to dance with Oora when he got nervous.
Grogu-parent:
He does love music, and he really loves helping his friends. He feels everything so strongly.
Grogu-parent:
I’ll tell him, too, but if you remember tomorrow, please tell him I’m proud of him.
…
For once, you had evening plans.
You hurried home at the end of the week to drop your bag and then to meet Cara and Diima’s moms at the cantina. When they’d invited you, you’d internally done a victory dance – you’d made friends!! – but externally, you’d kept your cool. Mostly.
Cara was the only one there when you arrived, and you settled in beside her in the booth.
“Teach!” She greeted you with a grin. “Whatcha drinkin’? How are the kids?”
You gave her your order and soon you had a drink, too. You filled her in on what your charges had been up to that week, getting a few laughs at their antics. “What about you, constable? Anything new?”
“Well, we were going to take care of a reptavian problem over towards the east end of the lava flats, but Mando had to go off planet again. We’ll wait for him to get back, could use his firepower.”
You tilted your head. You figured she was talking about the shiny Mando you’d seen around the market sometimes. “Who–”
But before you could ask, Neela and Aminet arrived, and by the end of the night you forgot you’d even had a question at all.
…
you:
Grogu got excited when we learned about banthas and blurrgs today! We’re focusing on the letter Besh if you couldn’t tell. Then he drew a blurrg, it was honestly a pretty great likeness.
Grogu-parent:
He’s met a few before, so he knows them pretty well.
you:
Wow! When did Grogu meet a blurrg?
Grogu-parent:
When I first met him, we had a friend who kept them. He’s even ridden one before.
you:
You know, his picture from today makes a lot more sense now. He drew a little Grogu on top of the blurrg.
Grogu-parent:
He really likes blurrgs. They seem to like him too, which is good. Otherwise I’d be afraid they were going to eat him.
you:
That IS good because they definitely would.
…
At some point, your messages with Grogu’s dad became less focused on Grogu. You still always made sure to send an update, of course, but you were starting to get to know him, too.
You were trying not to look too hard at how that was making you feel.
You’ve never even seen this man.
You were starting to realize that that might not matter to you.
…
you:
Today we went on a little field trip to the market and Grogu was very well behaved!
Grogu-parent:
Are you sure you’re talking about my kid? He didn’t try to eat every blue treat in sight?
you:
Well, no, he did do that. But then we stopped and talked to the man who makes those blue cookies he likes – his name is Tam – and he showed Grogu how carefully he has to make each one. The way Grogu held the one Tam gave him made me think he was in awe. Anyway after that he was very well-behaved
Grogu-parent:
He does love to learn new things. I bet he loved watching the cookies get made.
you:
He really did! And me, too. I had no idea they were so finicky
Grogu-parent:
Not a baker?
you:
I can make bread ok, I guess. Tam’s got real skill.
Grogu-parent:
I can only make a few dishes but I’m trying to learn more for Grogu.
you:
I bet he loves that! Is it hard to cook on your ship?
Grogu-parent:
I don’t really, no space for it. I mostly rely on rations or quick things until I’m home.
you:
Ok that sounds not so great, so PLEASE promise me you’ll try the new restaurant when you get back. It’s really good and you’ll deserve it after all those rations!
Grogu-parent:
I will.
You tamped down the part of yourself that wondered if you could bring some long-lasting food that Grogu could give to his dad for his next trip. That was probably too much for a person you’d never even met. Right?
…
you:
The kids have been taking turns telling stories about their families, and Grogu told us one in pictures today. It seemed to involve a lot of snow and spiders? Ice spiders? Are those real?
Grogu-parent:
Of course he picked that story.
Grogu-parent:
Yes, it was when we were on the run, like I told you before. My ship was damaged and we had to do an emergency landing on an ice planet.
Grogu-parent:
The local fauna did not appreciate Grogu’s approach to exploring the area and chased us back to the ship.
you:
Holy kriff! We’re they actually as big as a house, or was that his creative license taking over the drawing?
Grogu-parent:
Most of them were small. One of them wasn’t.
you:
That sounds absolutely terrifying
you:
I’m so glad you’re both ok!! How did you get away?
Grogu-parent:
A couple of the New Republic guys from Adelphi had followed us and helped out. But we had to limp over to Trask to get the ship fixed.
you:
You know, that is basically what Grogu drew for us, I think I just couldn’t believe it was all true.
you:
Ok my mind is totally blown. Does this sort of thing happen to you a lot?
Grogu-parent:
More than I would like, yes.
…
you:
Grogu did really well with addition today! We’re learning about adding and subtracting with piles of tokens. He even helped his friend Kiran with a tricky one!
Grogu-parent:
He’s so smart, I’m glad he’s getting to show it.
you:
He really is! And he loves to learn.
Grogu-parent:
I’m glad he’s so good at making friends. I was worried about him. I don’t set the best example.
you:
What do you mean? You have so many friends
Grogu-parent:
I can’t tell if you’re joking.
you:
Not joking! There’s Cara, and Karga, and IG.
Grogu-parent:
3? Is that a lot? I don’t think I’m very good at being friendly.
You hesitated, but it did feel right to call him a friend, at this point.
you:
Well, you’ve also mentioned knowing people on at least two other planets. And you’re friendly with me! That is, if you don’t mind being friends with someone who sometimes forgets to switch out of “talking to kids” voice when talking to adults. And who is usually partially covered in arts and crafts.
Grogu-parent:
I don’t mind. I’d like to be your friend.
You grinned and did not do a little victory dance. Definitely not.
you:
me too!
That one had made you float home.
…
you:
Wait, you really calculate all your jumps yourself?
you:
That’s so impressive! Does it take a long time?
Grogu-parent:
It did when I first started, but I’ve done it so many times it’s not so bad now.
you:
Grogu must get his math skills from you.
Grogu-parent:
So much happened in his life before I found him. Most of the time I feel like I’m learning things from him, and not the other way around.
You felt a little squeeze around your heart at the thought of Grogu without this man, without his dad. You were glad they’d found each other.
you:
That’s adorable, but you should know he shows us things that you taught him all the time.
Grogu-parent:
Uh oh. Like what?
you:
Today he showed us how to tie a cape around your neck so it will stay on. It made me wonder – do you wear a cape?
There was a pause that made you wonder if you shouldn’t have asked. Your message screen moved up as if a new message was about to come in, but then nothing did for another minute.
Grogu-parent:
I do. Sometimes.
You laughed, a bit wonderingly. Who is this man?
…
you:
Today some of the students shared stories or keepsakes from their homeworld or families – this isn’t a mandatory activity, since I know it can be complicated for some. Grogu drew us a picture of IG-11, I think. But he got really excited when Tamar mentioned that the twins have family on Tatooine, of all places.
Grogu-parent:
He’s been there, so that was probably it. I guess I do have another friend there, too. Maybe two.
you:
Ok, I’m starting to think you really undersold your ability to make friends
Grogu-parent:
I wasn’t lying when I said I’m not good at being friendly.
you:
You’re friendly with me! And how else did you get all these friends, then?
Grogu-parent:
I ask myself that all the time.
Grogu-parent:
But it’s easy to be friendly with you.
You blinked and felt your face heat up, suddenly glad you were alone in your classroom.
…
you:
Today in rehearsal Grogu showed us that he memorized his part for the show! It was very cute, I’m sure he’ll do it at home for you.
Grogu-parent:
Oh I’ve seen it. He’s been working hard on it.
you:
Of course he has! I could tell
Grogu-parent:
I’ll be on planet next week, maybe I could watch a rehearsal? If that’s alright. I don’t want to be in the way.
You grinned at your pad, but you also felt suddenly nervous. Were you ready to actually meet him? You didn’t even know his name.
you:
Of course! No, you won’t be in the way, we have plenty of space. It will be so nice to finally meet you!
Grogu-parent:
Ok, good. Yes, it will be.
…
On the day of the rehearsal you walked into the schoolhouse buzzing with nerves and excitement.
You were going to meet him. Grogu’s dad, whose name you still didn’t know, somehow, but whose kind, funny, possibly-edging-towards-flirty messages were starting to take over your thoughts. You didn’t want to get your hopes up, but you couldn’t help it.
You were going to meet him.
You managed to tamp down your excitement as your class arrived and took up all of your attention, but it never quite left your mind. By the time rehearsal rolled around after lunch, the nerves were back.
With 10 minutes to go, you couldn’t stop yourself from glancing at the door what felt like every 5 seconds. Diima’s mom Aminet arrived, and then the twins’ parents. You knew Kiran’s mom was going to try to get away from the shipyard, too.
The door opened again, and you turned to see her slipping inside and smiled. When you looked past her, you were startled to see the Mandalorian you’d seen around town standing in the street, about 15 feet from the school and framed by the door to your classroom.
He was tall, with very shiny armor and very broad shoulders. He was also covered in a slightly intimidating amount of weaponry, though you knew he was Cara’s friend and so you weren’t actually that scared. For a moment you simply stared at him, and even though his face was covered, you had a feeling he was staring back.
Curious, you took a step towards the open doorway, but that seemed to shock him into action. He took a corresponding step back, looked around, and then turned and walked away.
You poked your head out of the door and watched as he turned a corner, heading towards the market.
Weird.
You heard the kids start to make more noise behind you and turned, realizing it was time to begin.
…
Grogu’s dad never did show, but you tried not to let it get you down. At least, not until after the kids had left.
When Cara came to pick up Grogu, she smiled ruefully and shrugged. “I know, he was supposed to come. Sent me a message asking me to swing by, something came up.”
You sighed and shrugged back. “That’s alright. I know he’s busy.”
Your pad stayed stubbornly silent, and you left it at the school to discourage yourself from obsessively checking it all night long.
What happened?
…
Yawning, you dropped into your desk chair the next morning with a sigh. You hadn’t slept well, too worked up over what had – and hadn’t – happened the day before.
But your heart leapt into your throat when you saw you had a message waiting.
Grogu-parent:
I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it. I had to go off planet again, and it was pretty last minute.
Grogu-parent:
I already apologized to Grogu but I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet. I was looking forward to it.
From the timestamps you could see that he’d sent the messages while you were at home, trying to sleep. You bit your lip, wondering what to say back. It helped that he apologized but you still felt disappointed.
you:
That’s ok. I know you’re busy! I would have liked to meet. Maybe next time?
Grogu-parent:
I shouldn’t be too busy for this. Next time, yes.
you:
Deal. I’m counting on you, friend
There was a long pause that made you bite your lip. Was that too much? You started to put the pad down, sighing.
But then another message appeared.
Grogu-parent:
Since we’re friends, you should call me Din.
You froze. Din?
His name.
You started to grin.
you:
I see you, trying to make me forget about missing you yesterday by telling me your name today!
As soon as you send the message you hesitate, wondering if that was too much. But he told me his name! This has to be flirting. We’re flirting. Right?
Grogu-parent:
Missing me?
Kark. Of course he noticed that. Before you could even feel the heat reach your face he sent another message.
Grogu-parent:
I really wanted to be there.
you:
I’m just teasing you, Din. Thank you for telling me
You grinned and changed his contact name.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I missed meeting you, too
…
After Din told you his name, it seemed like your conversations just… flowed. You were opening up to each other in ways you hadn’t quite been able to before and it was making you feel giddy.
On top of that, you were pretty sure he was flirting with you. At least, you hoped so. You couldn’t stop turning the question over in your mind.
It’s not like you could ask anyone. You hadn’t told anyone you were having actual conversations with this man you’d never met – all Cara knew was that you sent him updates.
These weren’t exactly updates.
you:
Anyway, Grogu loved it. Painting with feet is always a popular activity but he was very enthusiastic
Grogu-parent-Din:
That doesn’t surprise me at all. He loves making a mess.
You laughed.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Is this one of those days when you’re covered in arts and crafts?
You blinked. He remembered that? And he was thinking about that? Was he thinking about what you looked like? You hesitated, and then typed your response.
you:
Oh definitely. I’m wearing more paint than clothes at this point.
Kriffing hell. Why did I just say that? You stared down at your pad, incredulous. That had to be too much. You definitely shouldn’t be flirting with a parent like that. And you hadn’t even meant to flirt! You started to type again, to apologize, but he beat you to it.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Sounds like quite a sight.
you:
See, I warned you, being friends with me means being friends with someone who can’t stop kids from covering her in paint.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Never said it would be a bad sight.
You felt a tingle run up your spine. Did he–
Grogu-parent-Din:
You’re not afraid of a mess. Neither am I.
Grogu-parent-Din:
You’re a good teacher.
Kriff, you wished you knew what this man looked like. You said goodbye and stood up to leave, you should not be having thoughts like this in your classroom.
Not afraid of a mess, he’d said.
Kriff.
…
Din kept flirting with you. It had to be flirting, you’d decided. (And you were definitely flirting.) But neither of you had addressed it directly.
You spent your days with the kids, and about half an hour every afternoon flirting with Grogu’s dad. And then the rest of your evening thinking about it.
you:
Grogu drew us a picture of a sort of humanoid-looking figure hanging off the side of a Jawa sandcrawler. It was pretty small in comparison with the sandcrawler, but was that you?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Unfortunately, yes.
you:
How did you end up hanging off the side of a sandcrawler??
Grogu-parent-Din:
The Jawas took apart my ship, stole the parts. I was trying to get them back.
you:
Well I assume you did, since you still have a ship
you:
How did you get them back? Dare I ask?
Grogu-parent-Din:
That’s a long one, but it involved me getting something they wanted from a mudhorn.
you:
A mudhorn?? An actual mudhorn
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’ll tell you the whole story sometime. But yeah, I got the parts back. Got a whole new ship now, though, that one got blown up later.
You realized you were staring down at your pad, mouth dropped open, frozen.
you:
… Din.
you:
Blown up???
Grogu-parent-Din:
You know, when I list it all out like this, it sounds kind of ridiculous.
you:
Kind of?
you:
Does this kind of thing still happen to you?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I won’t lie, sometimes it does. But not nearly as often.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I promise, I’m careful. Much more these days.
you:
You swear?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I do.
you:
Alright.
As you set down your pad, you thought about what you knew about Din. He wore a cape, did evasive maneuvers in his ship, had friends on multiple planets, and sometimes hung off the side of sandcrawlers and fought mudhorns. Someday you’d find out what his job was, and this would all make more sense.
You hoped.
…
At some point after he told you his name, you started taking your pad home.
It made sense, right? It would be rude to cut off the conversation because you had to go home, of all things.
And so like most nights, you found yourself sitting on your bed, smiling down at your pad, talking to Din for what you refused to recognize was over an hour at this point.
Grogu-parent-Din:
You know, I didn’t realize how much calmer my life is now until I started telling you these stories.
you:
I’m just glad your life IS calmer now! Din, sometimes you tell me things and I don’t know how you survived.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Me too. That it’s calmer now, I mean. For Grogu, of course, but I get a lot more sleep these days.
you:
I know you’re busy, but maybe you could stick around for a bit longer next time. Relax a bit? I think you need it
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’m not very good at relaxing.
you:
Maybe you just need someone to show you how it’s done
You were flirting again. You bit your lip.
Grogu-parent-Din:
You volunteering?
You grinned. He was flirting back.
you:
I might be. What do you say?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I say I’d like that.
you:
Yeah?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Yeah, cyar’ika. Show me how to relax.
You let out a noise that you were glad no one was around to hear.
you:
What’s that mean?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’ll tell you when we’re relaxing.
you:
Promise?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Promise.
…
With only a couple of weeks to go before the show, you were starting to feel the pressure, both for the kids and because you were finally going to meet Din.
He would have to come to the show, right? He said he would. You were pretty sure your distraction was noticeable – Cara had almost called you out on it multiple times. She’d taken to squinting at you and smirking knowingly when she caught you checking your pad.
A few nights after the promise to let you show him how to relax – which you couldn’t let yourself dwell on, not if you wanted to get anything done – he told you about his ship getting blown up.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’ve got a new one, of course, but I do miss that ship.
you:
Of course you do! How long did you have it?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Almost 15 years.
Your jaw dropped. He’d lost his home of 15 years?
you:
Din, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.
There was a long pause that made you worry you’d somehow overstepped. You started to type, to backtrack, when his response appeared.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Thank you.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I think people expected me to just get a new ship, but for a while I didn’t want to.
you:
Of course not!
you:
ugh, who said that? Let me talk to them
Grogu-parent-Din:
It’s ok, cyar’ika. No need.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Of course you can make me smile when I’m thinking about this.
You sucked in a sharp breath and tucked yourself into a ball around your pad on your bed. He smiled.
you:
I made you smile?
Grogu-parent-Din:
You always make me smile.
Your own smile felt so big it was taking over your face.
you:
You make me smile too, you know. Even when we’re not talking, you make me smile
Grogu-parent-Din:
Yeah? How do I manage that?
you:
I may or may not think about you, you know… sometimes.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I think about you all the time.
You felt your entire body get hot and tingly and gasped.
you:
Din!
Grogu-parent-Din:
I do. Lately you’re all I want to think about.
you:
Din. Are you flirting with me?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’ve been flirting with you, cyar’ika. Nice of you to finally notice.
You wanted to hide your face, even though you were the only person in your apartment. You settled for kicking your feet like a weirdo.
you:
I hoped you were. I’ve been flirting too, you know
Grogu-parent-Din:
Oh I know.
you:
Din!
Grogu-parent-Din:
I’m sorry I couldn’t come see you last time. I wish I had.
you:
Well, the show is next week! so soon! We can actually meet
you:
It’s not your fault you had to work.
There was another long pause, and you furrowed your brow, but it couldn’t quite wipe the smile off your face.
Grogu-parent-Din:
So I might have lied about that.
you:
About what?
You frowned down at the pad.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I didn’t have to go off planet suddenly.
you:
What?? Din what are you talking about
You didn’t like the swooping sensation in your stomach. So then why had he left?
Grogu-parent-Din:
I did come by the school that day, but I couldn’t go in.
you:
Why not??
Grogu-parent-Din:
I saw you, and I know, I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair that I’ve seen you. But I saw you, and you were smiling at someone, and you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, cyar’ika.
Your mouth dropped open. What?
Grogu-parent-Din: I froze. I got tongue-tied, I guess. All of a sudden I just knew, but I wasn’t prepared. And then I ran like a coward. I’m sorry.
You handled your pad in shaking hands, making a few more typos than you usually did.
you:
Din, are you tellign me that you thought I was so beautiful you ran awaY?
Grogu-parent-Din:
Basically, yes. I know, I know, Cara already read me the riot act. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t run next week.
you:
You better not!! I can’t believe you’ve seen me and I’ve never seen you.
He ran away because you were too beautiful? What the kark? This sort of thing did not happen to you.
Grogu-parent-Din:
I promise I will be there next week and I won’t run away.
you:
Good.
you:
No one’s ever thought I was so beautiful they RAN before, you know
Grogu-parent-Din:
That you know of.
you:
You know, that’s a good point
…
By the day of the show, you were a wreck.
You and Din talked every night, and it was wonderful, but it felt like a build up to something that was going to change your life. You didn’t want to put that much pressure on a simple meeting, but you couldn’t stop yourself.
You liked him so, so much.
And on top of that, the kids were excited and nervous and bouncing off the walls. Literally, in some cases. You wanted things to go well for them, and you wanted things to go well for you.
It was a lot.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Can I come by early? Or should I wait until after?
you:
PLEASE come early. I can’t wait through the whole show to meet you, I’ll be too nervous! The kids are going home for a couple of hours after school, and then they have to be back for the show
Grogu-parent-Din:
Cara is taking Grogu with Oora for a final practice together and I said I’d meet her there. So I can come as early as you’d like. You tell me when to be there and I will.
Your hands were shaking again.
you:
How about half an hour before the kids are due back? Gives me time to have emotions but not to get TOO distracted.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Am I going to give you emotions, cyar’ika?
you:
You know you are, Din.
…
Somehow, the kids had been gone for an hour and you’d managed to finish setting everything up in the small auditorium. The little stage was ready and the decorations were perfect.
And now all you had to do was wait for Din.
It was nerve-wracking. You were doing your best not to watch the clock, but with fifteen minutes to go before he was supposed to arrive, you found yourself pacing around your classroom, talking to yourself.
You were debating running to the corner and back just to work out some energy when someone cleared their throat behind you.
You whirled, heart in your throat, and were surprised to find the Mandalorian you’d seen around town standing in the doorway of your classroom.
“Oh! Hello, Mando.” You took a deep breath and resisted the urge to twist your hands together. “Can I help you with something?”
He didn’t answer right away. He looked around the room, and you took a moment to study him. His armor was very shiny, and it fit him very well. He was a very broad man, you realized. And he had fewer weapons on him than the last time you saw him, though of course he still had some.
He took a step inside and his cape swayed behind him.
“You know,” he said, and his voice was deep and warm. You thought he might be smiling, but wondered how you could tell. “I know it’s not realistic, but I really did picture you more covered in paint.”
You froze and felt a tingling sensation flow from your feet to your head, making you suddenly lightheaded. It can’t be.
“...Din?” you breathed, stunned. Your eyes traveled over the length of him again, and then suddenly caught on the cape.
He stepped forward again and then he was right in front of you. You couldn’t stop gaping at him.
“Hi, cyar’ika,” he said, voice deep. He reached out and lightly brushed his fingers against yours.
Your body finally kicked back into gear at his touch and you shoved him lightly in his armored chest. “Din!” You put both of your palms on his chest and marveled at the fact that he was here, in front of you, solidly physical and real. “You’re here!”
He chuckled, and you marveled again at being able to hear him. “I promised I would be.”
You felt yourself start to smile and noticed his helmet dipped. “I can’t believe you’re here.” You ran your hands down his chest and then froze. “Oh, I’m sorry, I just started touching you, I didn’t even ask–” You started to pull your hands away but he caught them and placed your hands back on his chest.
“You can touch me,” he murmured.
“Yeah?” you asked, grinning.
He nodded.
“I may have thought about it… a lot,” you confessed, stepping even closer.
His hands released yours and came to rest on your hips. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
For a moment you just grinned at him, a bit stunned.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come in last time,” he said, and he did sound sorry. “I wanted to, I just…”
Now that you had him in front of you, real and solid and a man, it felt suddenly easier to tease him. “But you were overwhelmed by my beauty, huh?”
You gasped when he tugged you closer and squeezed your hips. “I was,” he agreed. “You are so kriffing beautiful, cyar’ika.”
You felt yourself begin to melt, but then remembered. “Wait,” you said, looking up at his visor. “You promised – what does that mean?”
He leaned down and nudged your forehead gently with his helmet.
“Sweetheart.”
…
The kids’ show went off without a hitch. Grogu was overjoyed to have his dad in the audience and played the drums with more enthusiasm than you had ever seen him have in practice. All of the kids did well, and their parents kept telling you how impressed they were as they headed home.
As soon as the area around you cleared, after the show, Din appeared with Grogu in his arms.
“Grogu, you did so well!” You reached your fist out to bump his little one and he cheered. “I’m so proud of you and I know your dad is, too.” You looked up at Din, who nodded.
“I am,” he agreed, “I told him.” He looked down at Grogu. “Right, bud?” Grogu made a little noise that definitely sounded like agreement.
“Are you heading out?” You asked, smiling at Cara when she came to join your group.
Din nodded. “Taking this one home. But, I wanted to ask – are you free tomorrow?”
You grinned. “I am.”
He took a step closer and Grogu made a little bah noise. “I’ll message you. But you have plans.”
You could feel Cara smirking at the two of you but you couldn’t look away from Din. “I do?”
Din leaned a little bit closer. “You do now.”
You said goodnight, but the warmth from finally meeting Din and knowing you had plans later carried you home.
Grogu-parent-Din:
Meet me at the market after lunch?
you:
Yes! What are our plans?
Smiling, you made an update to his contact.
Din:
I’m ready to learn how to relax.
…
You stood by the large tree at the edge of the market, nervous but excited. You’d spent too much time picking out your clothes and now that you were there, you couldn’t stop remembering how it had felt to finally touch him.
“You look beautiful,” a warm voice said from behind you, and you spun around.
“Din!” You grinned. He was very shiny in the midday sun.
He stepped closer and one of his hands came up to cup your upper arm. His gloved thumb moved back and forth across your skin in a light caress. “Hi, cyar’ika.”
You felt your face heat at the endearment, now that you knew what it meant.
“I’m ready to relax,” he said, voice teasing.
You laughed and leaned a bit closer. He was right there, in front of you, and you felt like you were floating. “Alright. I say we walk through the market and stock up on some snacks, and then we’ll try out some aimless relaxation. Preferably on a couch or other soft surface. And maybe we’ll listen to some music.”
Din nodded along to your instructions, turning to follow as you walked towards the market. He slid his hand down your arm and slipped it into yours. “Does your place have a couch?”
You looked at him. “Din, would you like to come back to my place? Do you have time?”
He leaned forward and nudged his helmet against your forehead again. “Cara’s got Grogu. I’m all yours. And yes, I do want to.”
“Great,” you said, smiling, and started to point out your favorite stalls. You collected some fruit and cookies from Tam and some other snacks as you walked.
Din took each item and stored them in a bag as you collected them. “Are these the cookies Grogu learned how to make?”
You nodded. “And he still loves them.”
Din laughed. “Of course he does.”
Once you had a nice assortment, you turned in the direction of your apartment. As you walked, you marveled at how easy, how right it felt, to spend time together in person.
“Is it nice, being back on planet?” you asked.
He nodded once. “Food’s much better,” he said, and you smiled. “So’s the company.”
You turned onto the small street with the door to your apartment. “Flatterer.”
As you stepped up to your door to unlock it, Din stepped up close behind you. So close you could feel the heat of his body. “It’s the truth, cyar’ika.”
You felt a shiver travel up your back as you finally unlocked the door, followed by the tips of his fingers as they followed the shiver. “Well, here it is.” You waved your arm at your apartment and stood to the side to welcome Din inside.
He looked around, and suddenly you felt nervous. Before you could get too worked up, though, he said, “I like it. It’s very warm, like you.”
You blinked. “What do you mean?”
Din stepped closer and nudged your forehead with his helmet again. “You’re easy to talk to, and so warm in all of our conversations. It feels like that.”
You leaned closer. “Does this mean something?” You nudged his helmet.
He hummed. “It’s a Keldabe kiss. It’s how we kiss without removing our helmets.”
“Din!” You exclaimed, leaning back to look at him. “You kissed me when we met yesterday?”
“Couldn’t help it.” He leaned in to do it again and you grinned. “I’ve been wanting to for weeks.”
You reached down and took his hand, tugging him towards the living area. “Come on. We have some relaxing to do.”
To your surprise, rather than joining you on the couch, he started stripping off his armor and placing the pieces carefully on your dining table. He must have noticed your surprise because he explained, “Relaxing, right? This will be more comfortable.”
You watched carefully, taking note of each piece. When he was finished he was just wearing his flight suit and helmet. You couldn’t help but ask, “not the helmet?”
Din seemed to tense for a moment, but then he relaxed. “No. I… my creed. I can’t take it off in front of other living things.”
You tilted your head, considering this information. “Not even Grogu?”
He shook his head. “Grogu is clan, he’s my son. Our clan can see our faces.”
That made sense. “Alright. Want to sit?”
You gestured at the seat next to you and smiled as he sat.
“You don’t…” he trailed off and turned in his seat to look at you head on. “You don’t have more questions?”
You turned sideways and leaned against the back of your couch, propping your chin on your hand. Your knee brushed against his leg. “No, not right now. I mean, I want to know more, but mostly I figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready, right? If it’s stuff I can know.” You reached over and slipped your hand into his and squeezed. “I don’t want to push you, and I like the way we’ve been talking.”
He leaned forward and squeezed your hand. “I like it too.” His voice was suddenly much deeper. “Thank you.”
You smiled. “Are you thanking me for being patient?”
Din nodded. “I am. So what’s the next step in our day of relaxation?”
You gestured at your sound system. “Let me put on something soothing.” You grabbed your data pad from the coffee table and set it up. “There.”
Soft music started to play and you eased back into your seat.
“Do we just sit here?” Din asked, sounding a little baffled.
It made you smile. “Yes, but we can talk. Or you can always lie down, that’s much more relaxing.” You grabbed a pillow and placed it against your thigh. “Want to try it?”
“Here?” He pointed at the couch and you nodded. He hesitated and then took off his boots. He slowly leaned down until he was lying back against the pillow. As soon as his back was flat he groaned. “Ok, maybe I needed this.”
“Maybe you need a back rub,” you replied.
Din laughed. “Probably. I don’t know if I’ve ever had one. You offering?”
“Never?” You shook your head, incredulous. “Ask me again later. We’re relaxing right now.” You fell into an easy conversation about your week and you finally found out more about his job. As you talked, you leaned further into the couch and started idly tracing shapes along his chest with your fingertips without even realizing you were doing it.
“A bounty hunter makes so much more sense than what I was thinking,” you remarked as he finished telling you about his last job. “All of your ridiculous stories make sense now.”
Din laughed again and you realized you wanted to hear that sound more. Every day, if you could.
“That’s good. I realized in retrospect how it all sounds when I was talking to you.” He reached up and laced his fingers through yours, stilling your hand against his chest. “It doesn’t scare you?”
You looked down at his visor and smiled. “I was already worrying about you, but I know you’re capable. I could tell from your stories. If anything, it’s reassuring — you must be good at it, to be doing it this long.” You sighed. “But I probably will still worry, yes.”
Din hummed and you felt certain he was looking at you, too, even though you couldn’t tell through the dark glass. “Cara offered me more work around here. I think I’ll take her up on it. I’ll still go off planet sometimes, but not as much.”
“Well,” you said, smiling, “I won’t pretend I don’t like the sound of that. But you don’t have to do that just because we’re, um…” you trailed off as you realized you didn’t exactly know what you were.
“Relaxing together?” He teased, and you laughed. “It would be better for Grogu, that’s important. But I do want to be here more so I can see you more. Not only send messages.” He squeezed your hand. “I like you.”
You felt something warm settle inside you at his words and you were certain it showed on your face. “I like you too, Din.”
You told him more stories about the kids’ antics during the week, but you realized as you finished a story about Kiran trying to adopt a lizard from the lava flats as the class pet — and Grogu wanting to eat it, instead — that Din had fallen asleep.
You smiled and curled your body more around his helmet and the pillow in your lap. The fact that he felt comfortable enough to fall asleep with you filled you with warmth. You took the opportunity to study this man who had somehow swept you off your feet through pad messages. Even without seeing his face, you could tell he was attractive – his body was toned and strong, but not thin. You could tell he was used to very physical work. You traced his shoulders and arms and chest with your eyes and bit your lip – he was much more exposed like this, without armor. You could see the outline of his body and it made you press your thighs together under the pillow.
Get it together, you told yourself sternly. We are relaxing, not ogling.
He stirred, suddenly, and you couldn’t help but soothe him. “Shhh, go back to sleep,” you murmured. “Relax.” He seemed to settle again at the sound of your voice, so you kept talking. “I’m really glad you feel comfortable here, Din. With me.” You hummed along to the music softly for a moment. “You really are very handsome. I can tell. And kriff, these shoulders. And your hands.” You laughed softly at yourself. “I already liked you, you know? Without seeing you. But now…” you trailed off, suddenly embarrassed by what you were admitting even though he was asleep.
At least, you thought he was asleep.
He startled you by responding, suddenly, and tightened his hold on your hand on his chest to keep you from pulling away. “Now?” he asked, voice scratchy and deep. “Now what, cyar’ika?”
You felt your face heat up. “How much of that did you hear?”
Din hummed and settled more into the couch. “Something about my shoulders.”
“Kriff,” you said, laughing. “That’s so embarrassing.”
He shook his head. “No, I liked it.” He squeezed your hand. “What were you going to say? But now…” he prompted you, and you could hear the smile in his voice.
“Now I like you and I can’t stop looking at you, I guess.”
He looked at you for a moment, helmet tilted back. Then he started to sit up. You made a noise in complaint but he settled in much closer to you than before with his arm over the back of the couch. You were touching from shoulder to knee. Your breath caught.
“Is that really what you were going to say, mesh’la?” He leaned in towards you and pressed his helmet to your forehead again.
You shivered. “Din—“ you started, not sure what you were going to say.
“Tell me,” he urged you softly. He dropped his arm over your shoulders and suddenly you were totally wrapped up in his warmth.
“I already liked you,” you repeated, leaning into his embrace. “And I already wanted you. Before I’d even seen you.” You stumbled over your words but felt a surge of confidence when you felt him draw in a sharp breath. “And now I can’t stop looking at you. Because you already had me with your flirting.” You reached out and placed your hand on his thigh and squeezed, and you couldn’t take it anymore. “But Din, I am so turned on. I know we just met, officially, but—“
“Cyar’ika,” he murmured, wrapping his free arm around your waist. “I’ve been hard since you told me to lie down in your lap.”
Your gaze shot down to his pants, but you couldn’t see any proof.
“These pants don’t show it. But believe me,” he lifted your hand from his thigh and placed it over his hard length. Your eyes widened. “I want you. Badly.”
“Din,” you breathed. You looked back up at him and squeezed his cock, and watched a shiver travel across his shoulders.
“How dark is your bedroom?” He asked suddenly.
“Very,” you said, a bit confused. “I have those curtains that block out the light, helps me sleep.”
“Perfect,” he replied, and tugged you up off the couch. “Come here, mesh’la.” He grabbed something from the pile of his things on the coffee table and led you towards your bedroom after you pointed it out.
Once inside, he moved towards the windows and closed the curtains. The room immediately darkened. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking around the room, and nodded.
“Good,” he said, and you stepped closer.
“Good for what?”
Din held up his hand and you realized he was holding a length of black cloth. “It’s dark enough in here. But just to be sure… if you, would you wear this?”
Suddenly you realized the reason why he was doing all of this and your entire body lit up in response. “Your helmet?” you asked, eyes wide.
He nodded. “Will you?” He held what you recognized as a blindfold towards you, and you nodded before he’d even finished speaking.
“Of course,” you said, stepping closer. “Din, I promise, I won’t look. But yes, I’ll wear it.”
You saw some of the tension fade from his shoulders and smiled. He took you gently by the shoulders and turned you around. “Thank you,” he murmured as he lifted the blindfold into place. He tied it tightly, but not too tight. “How’s that?” You felt air on your face and wondered if he was waving his hand in front of your eyes.
“I can’t see anything,” you confirmed. You reached back, trying to find him, and he caught your hand. “I promise.”
He turned you back around slowly and suddenly you were pressed up against his chest with his hand on your back. “I believe you. I trust you.”
You thought of the way he had fallen asleep so easily in your presence and smiled. “What now, Din?”
You heard a hissing noise and then a large thump and realized he must have removed his helmet. The sound of his voice confirmed it. “Now, cyar’ika,” he said, and you shivered when you felt his breath on your face, “I’m going to kiss you.”
You opened your mouth to respond, yes, and maybe please, but you never got the words out. His lips met yours and every other thought flew out of your head. You could tell he was somewhat new to this – that wasn’t surprising, considering what he’d told you about his helmet – but he learned quickly and you barely noticed any awkwardness. You lost yourself in his kiss, in his arms, in the darkness of your blindfold.
When his tongue traced along your bottom lip, you moaned, and his answering moan made you feel lightheaded. He broke away suddenly to press kisses down your neck and you sighed. “Din,” you said, and realized your hands were tangled in his hair. His hair. “That feels so good.”
“Does it?” He murmured, and you could hear his smirk. “Tell me, cyar’ika.”
You pushed yourself closer until you were pressed fully against him. “Yes, Din. Can we– can you–” you weren’t sure what you were asking, and he interrupted you with a nibble at your neck.
“We can do whatever you want,” he promised, voice low. “What do you want, mesh’la?”
That word, the new one, finally snagged at your attention. “What’s that mean?”
He lifted his head and pressed his smile to your cheek. It made you smile back. “That’s what you want? To know that?”
You nodded. “Please. And then I want you to make me come.”
Din growled and tugged you in the direction you were pretty sure led to your bed. “Beautiful,” he said, voice intent. “It means beautiful. Because you are.” He tugged you downwards and you realized he was sitting on the bed. You settled into position straddling his lap and ground your hips down. His answering moan was very gratifying. “Let me make you feel good.”
He had one arm around your back, and you felt his other hand trail along the waistband of your pants. You tilted your hips forward to encourage him. He undid them deftly and you sighed when his large fingers slid inside your underwear.
He teased you, and you knew he could feel how wet you were without even pressing inside.
“Did I turn you on, cyar’ika?” He pressed his lips to your ear and you shivered at how deep his voice was. “Is this for me?”
“Yes, Din,” you said, and before you could say anything else his fingers parted your folds and slipped inside.
“So wet,” he said, voice awed. “And all for me, hmm?” His fingers found your clit and circled it and you gasped. He swallowed it with a kiss.
You broke away on a gasp when he replaced his fingers with his thumb and trailed through your wetness to circle your entrance with his fingertips. “Din,” you said, pleading.
“Is this what you want, mesh’la?” You nodded and he nipped at your neck below your ear. “I thought about this,” he said, lips brushing against your ear as he slid his fingers inside you. “Thought about this when you talked to me, when I pictured you covered in more paint than clothes.” He curled his fingers forward and you moaned. “Thought about this when you made me smile, when you said you think about me.”
“I do, Din,” you said, voice unsteady. You wrapped your arms around his neck and ground down on his fingers. “I thought about this, too.”
“Yeah?” he asked, and you nodded against his neck. “My fingers?”
“Yes,” you said, building up a rhythm with your hips. “And your cock. And your tongue.”
Din let out a noise you could only classify as a whine and it sent sparks shooting up your spine. “You want that? My mouth on you?” You nodded, almost frantically, and he shuddered. “I want that too. You have no idea how much.”
You could feel it building inside of you and you buried your face in his shoulder. You marveled at feeling so much of his skin as you did.
“I think you’re close, cyar’ika,” he murmured between kisses on your neck. “You’re squeezing me.” His thumb started to move faster and you knew you were about to fall over the edge. “Come for me, beautiful. I want to feel it.”
You did, with his fingers thrusting in and out of you and his arm holding you tight in his lap. You cried out his name as you fell and shuddered at the sparks flying through your body. The pleasure washed over you like a wave, head to toe.
When you came back to yourself, you were on your back on the mattress with Din’s body pressing you down.
“You with me?” he asked, and you nodded. “Good. Cyar’ika, I want to fuck you.”
Your head swam at his words, and you nodded again.
“Let me hear your voice,” he murmured, and kissed you. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to fuck me, Din,” you said, and felt it when he smiled into a kiss. “I’ve wanted it, badly.”
“Me too,” he promised, and lifted off of you to remove his flight suit. When he pressed back down and you felt his skin on yours your eyes rolled back in your head.
“Dank farrik,” he said through gritted teeth. “You’re so soft.” He rubbed his body against yours and you gasped at the sensations he sent through you. His hard cock was trapped between your stomachs and you lifted your hips, wrapping your legs around him, trying to change the angle.
Din tilted his hips and suddenly his cock was nestled against you, and you gasped. “You feel so kriffing good,” he moaned, and you nodded.
“You too, Din,” you cut off on a gasp when the head of his cock nudged your clit. “Please fuck me.”
Din huffed a laugh, and murmured, “so polite.”
You smacked him lightly on his very shapely ass, and then paused to fondle it. He laughed again and you grinned into his neck. “Is there something wrong with polite?”
Din nudged at your cheek until you turned into a searing kiss. “No,” he finally replied, lifting his hips and reaching down to move his cock right where you wanted it. “Just makes me want to give you what you want. Even more.” The head of his cock pressed against your entrance and you sighed. “I’ve thought about this so many times, almost since the beginning.” He started pushing inside and you tangled your fingers in his hair. You were panting. He was big. “And then I saw you, and you were flirting with me, and I couldn’t,” he pulled out slightly and thrust forward again, “stop,” he did it again, farther in this time, “thinking about it.” He pushed steadily forward until his hips met yours and you both moaned.
“Me neither,” you said, turning your head and nipping at his ear. He moaned again. “So much, Din.” He shuddered as he pulled out and thrust forward again, and you lifted your hips to meet him.
He found a steady rhythm that sent sparks up and down your spine, building you up and sending you closer and closer to the edge. Your mind was spinning with pleasure and a bit of awe that you were finally there, that Din was inside you, like you’d been hoping for. Like you’d been craving.
Din leaned his weight onto his left arm and snaked his right hand between your bodies until he found your clit. When he circled it with his finger you almost sobbed.
“I want to feel you come again, mesh’la.” Din’s voice was rough with his own pleasure and it made yours shoot higher. “Squeeze me tight. Dank farrik.” His chest heaved when you did as he asked and squeezed. “Let me feel it. Come for me.”
He thrust forward again and circled your clit just right and you fell off the edge again, but this time it felt like you were flying. You spiraled upwards on the wave of pleasure and when it crashed down again it flowed over your entire body, leaving tingles in its wake.
You squeezed his cock and he moaned into your ear. “You feel so good when you come, kriff, your pussy feels so good.” His hips thrust forward again, losing their rhythm, and you knew he was close. You tugged at his hair until your mouth hovered over his.
“Din,” you said, and kissed him. “Come inside me.”
He moaned and he did, thrusting twice more before stilling and moaning your name. When he collapsed on top of you you wrapped your arms and legs around him and sighed.
“Kark,” he murmured, pressing soft kisses along your neck and throat. “That was so good.”
You laughed, and gasped when he laughed too and you felt it against your chest. “It was, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “You know, I like this relaxation thing.” You laughed and squeezed him. He grunted. “I have another confession.”
“Uh oh,” you teased. “Is this the last one?”
Din pushed himself up until he was leaning on his left arm again and kissed you softly. “I promise. After this it’s just getting to know each other more.” He kissed you again. “But I need to tell you. I didn’t just run because you’re beautiful.” another kiss. “Even though you are and that was part of it.” A longer kiss this time followed by a nip to your bottom lip. You smiled. “But I also saw you, and all of these feelings I’d been putting off and denying came rushing up and I couldn’t deny them anymore. I think I was afraid, since we’d never met, never seen each other.”
You nodded. You knew that feeling.
“It was all real, suddenly, and I wasn’t ready for that.” He nudged at your nose with his and hummed.
You kissed him. “But you’re ready now?”
“I am,” he said, voice firm and warm. “I want you. I want this. I want to figure it out.”
Boo! Greetings, my kinky mochis and welcome to my first Kinktober! I'm quite nervous, but also excited to be trying this challenge. I hope my writing can live up to your wildest fantasies. I’ve catered this list according to your requests (and my self-indulgence). I’ll try my best to complete every prompt and add more —keep in mind it won’t be every day, but mostly, since I must be realistic about my writing habits and want to deliver the very best. Feel free to join this event’s tag list by commenting on this post or any of the solo texts. I’ll also be implementing a personal tag for this event #mochi kinktober since I saw other creators do it. What day got you most excited? So, ready to go trick-or-treating?
DAY 1. handcuffs, orgasm control 🫀 | Sabo
DAY 2. degradation, semi-public, possessive sex 🫀 | Portgas D. Ace
DAY 3. cum licking, outdoor sex 🫀 | Monkey D. Luffy
DAY 4. praise kink, multiple orgasms, creampie 🫀 | Shanks
DAY 5. lingerie, mirror sex 🫀 | Black Leg Sanji
DAY 6. monster fucking, creampie 🫀 | Charlotte Katakuri
DAY 7. medical play, dacryphilia 🫀 | Trafalgar D. Water Law
DAY 8. blindfolds, impact play 🫀 | Eustass Kidd
DAY 9. breeding, daddy kink 🫀 | Roronoa Zoro
DAY 10. orgasm denial, kneeling, marking/biting 🫀 | Mihawk Dracule
DAY 13. fire play 🫀 | Portgas D. Ace
DAY 11. oral sex, overstimulation 🫀 | Monkey D. Luffy
DAY 12. dom/sub, sensory dep 🫀 | Sabo
DAY 14. spanking, brat taming, hair pulling 🫀 | Trafalgar D. Water Law
DAY 15. sex pollen, messy sex, threesome 🫀 | Roronoa Zoro & Black Leg Sanji
DAY 16. size difference, punishment, quiet sex 🫀 | Charlotte Katakuri
DAY 17. threesome, voyeurism 🫀 | Shanks & Mihawk Dracule
DAY 18. finger sucking, dildos 🫀 | Yamato
DAY 19. writer’s choice, double penetration 🫀 | Portgas D. Ace & Trafalgar D. Water Law
EXTRA DAYS. birthday sex, breeding/creampie 🫀 | Trafalgar D. Water Law
Catchie's World @catchdempaws - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
