Summary: (Body Swap AU) You are forced out into the desert to find moisture farmers on the desert planet. On your trip the Mandalorian asks you questions about your past he’s wanted to know for more than six months, and some truths are revealed.
Rating: A cautious M. This chapter has some descriptions of canon typical violence. While it’s not graphic it is very obvious what is being discussed. Violence related to war.
Tags: body swap, force sensitivity
A/N: This is the second part of the not officially two parted chapter and this is the GOOD part (hopefully, lol) Backstory amiright ladies? Backstory backstory backstory and MORE backstory. I’m a slut for it. Also an excuse for some e m o t i o n s Because I JUST KEEP FEELING THEM. Also fckn s/o to @namay @hdlynn @sistasarah-sallysaidso and @fleurdemiel145 for the beautiful feedback u guys r everything 💕
It's the beginning of harvest season. The aliens which run the moisture farm are ones you have never seen before, hard skin, narrow eyes almost shut against the glare of the desert. They speak no basic, but sign in a language similar enough to Tusken that Mando can negotiate a price. The two tanks of water you buy are barely enough to drink for a week. Will only get you to the next nearest planet with a trading centre by millilitres. It costs you all the spare parts you have. Makes you grit your teeth beneath the helmet.
They offer you shelter in a small outhouse. A round, domed building made of the same red dirt as the surface of the planet. Mando is quiet the whole day. Barely speaks even when the farmers leave you alone in the hut. The child’s crib finally open in the controlled air. Outside the shape of the vaporators on the horizon spear against the sky. Mando shows you how to tilt up the helmet just enough to eat without pulling it off. The farmers come by to check on you with frequency which makes you too nervous to take it off completely. He’s tense and stiff even when you are alone. You find yourself buried in your blankets before the sun begins to set. Sore from two days riding and sorer at knowing there is the same ahead. Find yourself missing your lumpy cot on the Crest.
The next morning Mando wakes you before dawn. The farm is already busy. The air is bitterly cold before the sun rises. Mando has his scarf wrapped so tightly around his face even his eyes are barely visible. It is not until well after dawn your tanks are loaded onto the carriages of the two bikes and ready to go. Mando signs his thanks. He is unsettled, twitching to leave. You set out when the last of the stars have finally faded away, melted into a pale blue sky.
The sun rises quickly once you set out. The air becomes bearable. You think that the warp of haze in the desert is worse that day, so there is no horizon. The sun is so bright your eyes begin to strain. The terrain so flat and constant. You will be glad to turn your backs to the planet and move on. The day slips by. Slow at first, so that you think maybe you will be stuck in the desert forever, and then too quickly. Your toes had gone numb first. Then your legs. Your fingers burned around the handles until they didn’t anymore. Mando doesn’t stop to eat or rest and you follow.
It's pitch black but for a beam of white from the front lights of your bike when you finally stop. You leave it on, stagger off your bike. Hands aching and sore to flex from clutching the bike. It takes some time for the blood begin to flow, hurts your toes when it does. But you have no time to linger and ease onto your feet. Mando hasn’t moved from the bike, he’s so stiff and still even in the dark by the light of the stars you can see it. You almost trip getting to his bike and when you finally do he moves, peels himself off the bike with enormous effort. He stumbles and you manage to catch his arm. It’s shaking. Badly. You should have stopped an hour ago. More, maybe. The cold is coming on too fast in the dark. You should be angry at him – angry he would risk exposing you both to the freezing night air.
“You idiot, Mando.” It has no bite. No anger. You help him to sit on the dirt and make quick work of extracting his bed roll and thermal cape from his pack. Roll them out and check you have everything in the bike light. Set the bed rolls out and catch something before you can add the thermal cape. A patch of light through the middle of it.
You move and hold it up to the light. The cape is threadbare, worn through in places so you can almost see the bike behind. You drop it to the ground and dig out your own pack, fumble for your thermal cape. Hold it to the light as well. Its seen better days, but it is whole and not so thin as Mando’s. The anger you knew you should have felt before surfaces now and you turn back to him, rolled into his bed and pull the covers back. Wrap the thermal cape around him and cover him again. He stares at you, just his eyes over the top of his scarf. You want to scream at him. Don’t. Turn back to your packs to extract the woodbricks.
It takes you several tries to get the fire going. The cold is biting, but nowhere near as bad as you know it must be for Mando. Whatever is lining the armour is keeping your body heat within and the coating on the coarseweave keeps the worst of the cold at bay. You coax the flames as they begin to eat through the woodbrick, poke at them until the blaze is hot and bright. Hold your hands out in front of it to warm them. Mando shifts closer beside you. As close as he can without setting himself and his bed things alight. You crouch there until your fingers no longer burn from cold and your toes have feeling. Only then do you lay out and climb into your own bedroll, sitting upright.
“What in the kriffing hell is wrong with you?” You snap at him. Hold up his ragged cape. “Why do you have this?”
“Only have three.” He says. You can still hear the shake of his shivering.
“Why do you have the worst one?” You want to hurl the thing at his head, peaking out the top of his blankets. “You don’t have the armour on anymore! You’re going to freeze to death out here.”
He doesn’t answer.
“We should have stopped an hour ago. What the kriff do you expect me to do if you die?” You wait. Wait for some kind of response. He doesn’t say anything. “Mando!”
“We’re fine.”
You could scream. Have the sudden and childish urge to hit him. You drop the helmet into your hands. You can’t think of anything to say to that. So you clamber back out of the protection of the bedroll and check the kid. Pull out some of the salted meat and pass it in to him quickly with a gentle pat behind his ear before you seal him back in. Wary of the cold. But the crib is warm inside. You find yourself wishing for one. Wish it were big enough to crawl in with him and avoid the cold.
By the time you settle back in your bedding you are too tired to be angry. You pass over Mando his share of the food. He grabs your wrist instead. Catches your eye. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs.
You sigh. He takes the food and draws it under the blankets. You watch as he tucks as much of himself into it before unwinding the scarf. He eats quickly. Mustn’t even taste it. Winds the scarf back up around his nose and mouth and pulls the blankets up over his head.
“Are you at least getting warmer?” You ask.
He grunts.
You think it means yes.
The feeling is creeping. Slow and quiet. Until it’s not anymore, until you realise it isn’t yours. It’s an aching feeling, tired and sad. Almost guilty but not quite. Loss. Grief – not new, but not old either. Still weeping and sore. You nestle back into your bed covers, lay down finally. Your uneaten food next to your head. The Mandalorian must feel everything so intensely, because it fills you up until you have no room left in your heart for anything else. Just like the first time you had ever felt him on the Crest. It lingers and hurts until it becomes dry. A well all used up. And then it becomes soft. Aching in a different way. Familiar somehow, but before you can place it the feeling retreats and you are alone with your own heart again. When you twist slightly so you can see his face, his eyes are visible again. Looking at you.
“Why didn’t you come with me when I asked you on Batuu?” He says, voice muffled by the blankets.
The fire cracks and pops. A small shower of sparks illuminates the dirt beneath for only a moment before they fizzle and fade. The question sits heavily between you, so heavy it’s almost visible. He doesn’t look away and you can’t. Can’t find a way to tear your eyes from his. Aren’t sure where the question has come from.
“I…” You let out a shaking breath. “I was scared.”
“Of me?”
“No!” You jerk back slightly. And then more calmly, “No, Mando. Not of you. Maybe – maybe at first. I thought… I thought maybe when you came into the shop you were going to collect the bounty on me.”
“I was never going to.”
You smile. “I know now.”
He looks away first. He has relaxed finally, not curled in on himself so tight. You peer through the dark, think he has stopped shaking as well. Feel yourself sink further into your own blankets. More comfortable. Still too cold to be tired.
“What were you scared of?” He asks.
You roll onto your back. Above you the stars are visible, a river of silver light across the sky. Winking from the heavens. Bright. Infinite. They seem further away than you could ever reach, even in one hundred lifetimes. And yet, in the frigid desert air, close enough that if you brought your hand out from the blanket you could touch them. Trace the shape of them in the sky. A sky filled with life, and yet you are completely alone with the Mandalorian and his son. The darkness beyond the light of the fire so absolute you could be your own planet, floating with the stars.
“Everything.” A whisper. “After – after Coruscant. I’d never been alone before. Not really. And I thought… maybe… maybe I was better off. There, on Batuu.” You swallowed. Look at him again. He’s watching you too. “I regretted it, you know? After you left the first time. I thought I was never going to see you again and I thought – ”
“What?” He asks when you stop. “What did you think?”
You can’t hold his gaze, so you turn back to the stars. “I realised I was already alone.”
He’s quiet. Hums softly. You hear the sound of him shifting and when you chance glancing at him from the corner of your eye he is rolled onto his back. Staring with you into the galaxy. The moment settles around you. Peaceful. Easy. You tilt your helmet up like you had the night before, the way Mando had shown you. The air is so cold on your bare skin you hiss and swear. Hear the deep sound of your voice without the vodocor and it makes your stomach tighten. You can feel Mando look to you again at the sounds. Eat as quickly as you can. Feel relief when you can pull the helmet back down and the warm fog of your breathing warms your face.
You nestle deep as you can into your blankets. You aren’t as warm as you had been the first night out in the desert. Certainly not as warm as the night before in the dirt hut with the moisture farmers. Think you might kill the Mandalorian for giving you the warmer cape. So very typical of him not to say anything. You still miss it as you wait for the blankets around you to heat, hardly as effective without the thicker thermal cape. You tuck the thinning one in anyway, figure it must be better than nothing. You close your eyes. Open them again. Remember Batuu without really meaning to. The heat. The mech shop. The first time you’d seen the gleam of the Mandalorian’s armour. A lifetime ago. Really only six months. Think of the welding mask he’d given you as payment on his second visit to Batuu, hidden away under your cot on the Crest. You hadn’t needed it since coming aboard. Remember the way he’d tilted his helmet when he’d seen you carrying it after he’d given it to you. It makes your chest tighten.
“I don’t feel alone anymore.”
You feel silly as soon as they slip out. The words so quiet they crackle through the modulator. Drop in and out. But so loud in the quiet. Mando turns his head back to you. Eyes glowing in the flames of the fire. You don’t feel silly when you see the intensity there. It makes the tightness in your stomach double and twist. Feel a flush along the back of your neck and ears. The confession feels somehow more intimate because you are blushing in the Mandalorian’s body. Because it is his stomach you feel tightening.
“Gotabor.” His voice is so gentle. Makes the name feel different. Special. Not just engineer. The first time he’s said it to you since the swap, except – your panic attack. He had said it then too. Just as soft. Just as gentle. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you do it?”
You don’t need him to elaborate. Don’t need any more explanation, even though he had never asked you before. Never brought it up. Never even asked what the records contained. He knew your bounty. Traitor to the Empire. Aid to the Resistance. Wanted dead or alive. With some number, some meagre amount which felt too infinitesimally small to represent your life. As if your life could be contained within some amount of credits. Worth so little. Your bounty didn’t say why you were wanted, that you had leaked Empire orders for tie fighters, but he had known that when he found you on Batuu. Knew your real name.
You shake your head. “I don’t know.”
He’s silent.
“I didn’t even think about it first. I don’t think I even thought about it while I was doing it. It was so stupid. There was this guy, I can’t even remember his name. Some guy I met when I was out for drinks. I remember seeing him there and just thinking he was so… dirty. No one looked like that on Coruscant,” you say. Wish it didn’t sound as awful as it was. “And I saw him show some guy this little badge. I knew it. We all knew it. The insurgents. The rebel scum. And I just followed them. They didn’t see me.” You close your eyes. “They used to show these photos, you know. Have these big triumphant displays up in all the records buildings. And they had this one the next day of this – this – this pile of people. Like it was some, some victory. I never liked them. But after that night all I could see was that man in the bar lying in the pile with them. It was so stupid. And I just… I just did it. I found him again and I gave them to him. It probably meant nothing to them. Just spec sheets. Diagrams. How many they were ordering. They would do hundreds of orders. I – I guess it made me feel better. Like I wasn’t as bad as the rest of them.”
You open your eyes again. Look at Mando. Expect to see the hatred there. The revulsion. You feel it yourself, when you let yourself think about it. About life before Batuu. Some ridiculous little story of self-redemption while his people had burned at the hands of the Empire. But you don’t see them. His eyes are still gentle. The air around him is still quiet. It makes you feel better, lighter. Makes you feel even more stupid.
“I regretted it,” you say. “I went home afterwards and cried. So spoilt.”
“But you did it again.” Not a question.
“Yeah. Three more times. But the Empire was already falling apart. By the time anyone realised, I was long gone.” You want to stop, but now you’ve started you find you can’t. Words you’ve never said tumbling out. “They make you feel so important. The Empire. They make you feel like if you fall short then everyone does. Like we’re not some expendable cogs to them. Like you really matter.” And you feel awful, you feel terrible, but the words don’t stop, “The rebel guy. The informant. He said the same thing to me. The same thing as the Empire did. I was important.”
Mando is quiet again.
“I didn’t want to be just someone’s cog.”
You’re breathing hard. Almost panting. You aren’t sure if you feel better or worse having it out. Having it said. You think it might sit somewhere between. Some sort of shifting feeling between relief and fear. You wait for Mando to tell you how silly you sound. How childish he finds the whole thing. But he doesn’t. He just watches you, unchanged. Still looking at you the same way.
“Do you regret it now?”
Coruscant was different to this. Different to everything you knew now. Had been cold after your mother died and left you in the hands of the academy. But it was easy. It was inevitable. Life simply went on there. A Galaxy away from the Outer Rim. From Batuu. From the Mandalorian and his son. A son who maybe was like you. On Coruscant the war had felt like some holodrama. It hadn’t even been given the dignity of being known as war. It was a blight on the Empire, some upstart uprising. Some distant petulant child, throwing empty threats at an adult. But they had won. The Resistance had won. And life was the same for everyone else. Coruscant was too far away for the Resistance to control, and the Outer Rims too wild. But you aren’t resentful any longer.
“No. Not anymore.”
You are warm. Finally. The thinner thermal cape finally trapping in the heat of your body. You feel the weight of your eyelids. Time begins to slip, pull all around you. You think Mando is pleased at your answer, but you are too tired to figure out why. Happy he doesn’t hate you for the life you used to live. The fire still burns bright, heat pulsing against your bed rolls. You turn onto your side. Tuck your hands beneath the helmet to try and reduce the pulling it makes against your neck. You will be glad of the Crest when you get back so you can remove it.
“Mando?” You call. Not quite ready to sleep yet. He hums in response. “Why did you save the kid?”
He’s silent. You think maybe he had fallen asleep already. But finally, you hear a rustle. He turns on his side to face you across the flames. Looks as tired as you feel. “I don’t know,” he echoes you. “It just… seemed like the only option.”
You nod. There is another moment of peace. Warm and understanding. You feel the space between your souls pull. Closer together. You think you feel him again, a brush against you, but the feeling is gone before you can latch onto it. Retreating back into Mando. You think you will have to tell him about that also, three times now that you have felt his heart. But not tonight.
.
Mando goes slower the next day. Stops halfway back to let you both stretch and move. The ride is worse. Worse because your muscles ache in protest to clamping your weight around the bike. Better as well, because you will be back to the Crest in a few hours. Bearable because it is nearly over. The haze is not so bad either. It doesn’t hurt your eyes so badly. You can even manage to find a beauty in the flat, red landscape now that you know you are leaving it. You mention this to Mando while you lean, side-by-side, against his bike. It makes him laugh. The air around you both feels lighter than it has weeks. Longer even than the swap.
You load the water into the ship’s tanks with the mechanic. Mando avoids the yard, returns the bikes one by one. You are grateful when the mechanic is too terrified to talk to you, although a part of you thinks you shouldn’t be. You pump what you need into the ship’s tank, load the rest into the filtered water reserve. Let the mechanic talk you through the work he’d done on the ship with more patience than he deserves. It takes some time, and you double check everything by habit, protective of the ancient ship which has become your home. The mechanic fades off, leaves you to your checks. The kid is with you, you’d packed the crib aside and let him wander after you freely. Guilty he’d been cooped in there so long. He’s gleeful at the chance to stretch his legs. Sometimes crawls onto your boot and hangs on while you walk, squealing in delight at every step.
Mando arrives back as you finish closing the hatch. Eyes the smears of engine grease on the Beskar and the coarseweave.
“When we get to the next planet we need to shower,” he says. The bluntness makes you flush. “I’m going to clean the Beskar.”
You nod carefully. Relieving yourself was enough, certainly necessary. You know this will be different, though. A new kind of intimate. Know under the Beskar you must need it desperately. Know you will feel better with the grit of almost two weeks finally washed away. But – you try not to imagine it. You have enough material already that the image is clear enough without having ever stripped out of his underclothes. Try not to think about Mando surely also having the same thoughts. Seeing all of you. You manage a strangled sound of assent and have to walk onto the ship, can’t look at your own face. Can’t look at the dark blush marking those cheeks the longer you take to reply.
He doesn’t bring it up again. Let’s you empty both your packs and climbs into the cockpit. He waits for you to climb the ladder before he shows you the planet nearest to you. A trading port. You will need more fuel before long. Need more water. He’d calculated the distance already, you would make it there with what you had, but not with another jump to hyperspace. Another four days. Nearly a week. You have enough of the dried bread and fruits, and salted meats for longer. Spare rations bars. You collapse into the co-pilot’s chair while Mando sets coordinates. Prepares to leave.
Your legs are aching from the bike. Finally sitting it rushes over you fully. You groan and stretch them in front of you, stretch your arms above your head. Your back is the worst, hunched over the handlebar for days. Curled onto the hard dirt in the desert.
“Maker, I’m sore.” You tilt your head, stretch your neck out. Feel the muscles twinge and resist. “Kriff I am so sore.”
Mando huffs. “Back’s probably locked up.”
“Yeah, it feels like it.”
“Take it easy.”
You continue to move as much as you can bear. “Why am I so sore? Are you not sore?”
“I get thrown around a lot. Get hit a lot.”
You pause your stretching. For a moment you can’t piece together what he’s saying. And then. “Is this – is this a you thing? Maker, Mando, do you always feel like this?”
“Bounty hunting isn’t exactly an easy job,” he mutters. “Only if I’ve been sleeping rough. Or fighting someone.”
You groan and begin stretching again in earnest. As much as you can with the restriction of the Beskar. Mando is shaking his head from the pilot’s chair. You feel him watching you out of the corner of his eye. You push yourself up, ignore the way he tilts his head. You push your arms over your head and then drop your whole upper body down. Fold in on yourself and let your hands hang as close to your toes as you can get them. Straighten slowly. Change your stretch. It’s tight in the cockpit. There’s barely enough room for you both to sit, let alone stretch out. But you don’t think you will make it down the ladder. Eventually Mando abandons any pretence of ignoring you and swings the chair around fully. You have your back to him, but you still hear the muffled laughter.
ANDER AND PHISIR'S BACKSTORY!!!! Some adult stuff beware!
• Ander:
Ander was just 10 years old after being abandoned and abused by his dad before killing him after his dad abused his mom who died from a disease when his dad was with another mistress. Ander witnessing all of this became insane wanting to kill everyone after all he has seen even seeing his dad literally making S3x with a mistress of his not caring about his late wife who died. His goal was to kill the mistress bloodline like literally.
• Phisir:
Phisir was born in a royal family who had their hidden agenda. They made him wear girl clothing and even act like a woman even dye his hair pink to look good enough, it makes Phisir very uncomfortable doing what his parents do to him. It also cost his own young mindset after being S/A with other men who thought he was a woman. He was 9 years old at that time when that happened. A coincidence happened! Someone killed his dad that was making him be like a woman and it made him satisfied. He then decided to find his saviour wanting to thank him. That was his goal, thank his saviour who ended his suffering.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Title: in defense of the side character
Fandom: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Words: ~40k (6/8 chapters)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Entertainment/Film Industry, Slow Burn, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, (more like Players in Unavoidable Industry Friction to Amiable Colleagues to…Lovers)
Summary:
“Honestly, the marketing power of hiring an idol actor is stupid good these days—”
“Yeah, well,” Wonwoo interrupts, face twitching at the subpar delivery of what’s supposed to be an emotional line in the film, “I guess it’ll be a surprise.”
In which the picky screenwriter for Korea’s newest romantic film meets the ex-idol hoping to make his big acting debut in it.
When Nepherah emerged from the Arch, Imperius was confused and suspicious as hell. Though there was nothing wrong about or with her, things didn’t add up. As far as anyone knew, Naecerag had been dead for years, slain around the time that the Worldstone went missing. So why had it taken so long for her replacement to emerge?
It would take until after the events of RoS for anyone to uncover evidence that Naecerag had been among the angels that created Sanctuary, alongside Inarius. Where many of her fellows remained with their light burned into the earth, hers had eventually made it back, and was reborn.
This information drives a bit of a wedge between her and her Aspect. Technically, she’s not guilty of anything. But she can be rebellious at times, and Imperius does not want a repeat of Sanctuary. He’ll just have to keep an eye on her… and that weird tall friend of hers…
Since I had a ton of extra room on my MTH 111 homework, I decided to use the space by solving the homework equations using differential/integral calc out of spite. I just turned the homework eq into calc eq. I love math
