Chapter 1 of my five-chapter wip (currently getting my ass kicked by chapter 3) to feed the starving masses on this terrible day of AO3 Down. Fic and summary subject to change by the time I finish, edit, and finally post it. Fair warning this chap is 9 pages on my google doc.
Summary: After rescuing Grogu, Din retired to a quiet life as a lighthouse keeper with his son. Unfortunately, his life is determined to be anything but quiet.
Tags: Mermaid au, DinLuke, Din Djarin, Grogu, Luke Skywalker, Cara Dune, Moff Gideon, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Little Mermaid-ish, fantasy au, modern au, AAC, autistic Grogu, nonspeaking Grogu, Din was a hitman
EDIT: AUGH apparently AO3 came back up while I was posting. Was supposed to be down for 3 more hours...smh. Anyways, enjoy ig!
There was a merman lying on the rocky beach, above the tidal line, not twenty feet away.
Din rubbed his eyes. Blinked. The merman was still there.
He turned around.
Turned back.
Still there.
His gaze drifted up to the clouds as he thought, mind churning like stormy waves. Had he had breakfast that morning? Or water? Dehydration did things to the brain, right? Maybe the kid had kept him up too late and he was dreaming…
A rock landed very near his foot. He looked down.
The merman was waving to him. Propped up on one pale arm, with blue…gills? Fins? Waving merrily just behind his ears. There were more fins along the back of each arm. He was smiling and mouthing something, but no sound was coming out.
Din better not be hallucinating.
He picked his way across the rocks and stopped in front of the…fish. Man. Gods above, there were scales on this man’s bare stomach, and just below his belly button the skin faded entirely into blue scales, and his lower half was…
The merman flapped his tail, silently laughing. It slapped the ground with a wet sound.
Din could only stare.
The merman waved his hand, bringing Din’s attention back to his face, which was unfairly beautiful, a fact that Din elected to ignore. He began signing animatedly and mouthing something, but it wasn’t any sign language Din knew, and he’d never been great at reading lips.
Din shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”
The merman stopped signing with a huff. He bit his lip, looking around. There wasn’t much to see. This beach was isolated—that’s why Din had chosen it. There was nothing around except for chunks of pale rocks in varying sizes, the water, and, distantly, grassy dunes. And the lighthouse Din was paid to keep.
“Hold on,” Din said. He got several steps away before another thrown rock reminded him to say, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get something that will help.”
It was a long walk back to the lighthouse, but it was a walk he made every other day, to ensure that nothing weird or dangerous had washed up. And it was a good thing, too, because evidently something had washed up. Or…someone? Din wasn’t really sure how to refer to a literal merman. He still wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing.
Grogu was waiting at the door for him, one little hand holding the doorframe as he leaned out of it, waving his device. “Ba!” he shouted. His black hair fell into his face—Din needed to cut it soon—as he looked down to make selections. As Din neared, the device read out, “Dad where go? Why back soon?”
Din tousled his son’s hair. “Just came back to grab something real quick, buddy. I’ve gotta go out again.”
Grogu tilted his head in question.
Din passed him, entering the kitchen. “I don’t know what I’ve found. Somebody that needs help, I think.”
.
.
.
Din made his way back to the beach. The merman was still there. Din wished he had thought to grab himself a bottle of water, or a snack or something, but the fact that the man was still there boded well for Din’s mental faculties, if not for the logic of the universe.
“Can you read English? D’you even know English? Do you know what I’m saying?”
Din felt stupid, talking to some hallucination-man-fish-thing, but the man nodded, so Din took that as a yes.
“Okay. Uh, well I have this.” He held out the communication board that he had brought. It was laminated—they all were, so that they would last longer—so it wouldn’t be bothered by the fact that the man reaching out a hand to take it was still dripping wet. Din had grabbed the hospital board rather than any of the core boards or fringe vocabularies, thinking that it would be the most useful. It wasn’t like Grogu already had a single-page board for mermaid trapped on the beach, and Din figured that the man was likely to be injured or hurting in some way, being so far up on the rocks. “Point to whatever you want to say.”
The merman examined the green board with interest, front and back. He seemed to read every icon carefully. The back had the alphabet and “YES”/”NO” along the bottom, a section labeled “I WANT”, a section labeled “I AM”, “I WANT TO SEE”, and a section containing icons for yes, no, thank you, stop, pen/paper. The front had pictures of a blank, uncolored body showing the front and back view with a pain scale in the middle, and icons describing different types of pain like itches, stings, can’t move. Along the sides of the front were requests for items, bathroom, and like that, don’t like, repeat that, speak louder.
After a while, Din said, “Well? Are you, uh, injured, or anything?”
The man scanned the board again, and finally pointed to the image of a glass labeled Water. As he did so, Din noticed that his fingers were webbed halfway together, with shimmering blue, nearly-transparent webbing. He looked up at Din.
“Right. Right.” Din found himself swinging his arms as he looked around the beach. He forced himself to stop. “I can. Uh.” How heavy could a fish-man be? Probably very heavy. Still—“I can bring you back to the ocean?”
The merman shook his head vehemently, eyes wide. Din noticed for the first time that they were blue, like the man’s fins. The man pointed to the red icon labeled NO over and over.
Din held up a placating hand. “Okay, okay. No ocean. Got it.” He didn’t understand in the slightest, but the message was clear. “What if I bring up a bucket?”
The man nodded.
Din…didn’t have a bucket on him. Luckily, there was a storage shed not too far from here—there was a dock about half a mile back. Once he had a bucket and filled it with water, he hesitated.
“Do you want me to just—” Din made a motion like he was going to throw the water on him.
The man gestured for the bucket. Din handed it over. The man dipped his hand in and splashed the water on the fins sticking out of his head.
Huh. Maybe those were his gills, or…something. Din didn’t exactly know that much about fish biology. Mostly what he knew about was killing. And, slowly, how to care for a nonspeaking toddler.
“Are you lost? Are you, uh, hungry?”
The man pointed to Thank you.
Din was suddenly seized with the urge to know—”What’s your name? If—if you can spell it.” If a merman knew English, he could spell his name in English, right? Or would it be all clicks and whistles, like a dolphin?
He watched as the man spelled L—U—K—E.
“Luke.”
A nod and a smile.
“Luke,” Din said again, and wasn’t it enough that the man had an unfairly attractive face and, if he was already admitting things to himself anyway, body? Did he have to have a name that moved in Din’s mouth like that?
N—A—M—E—?
“What?”
Luke spelled it out again.
“Oh, my name.” Gods, Din was an idiot. “It’s Din. Din Djarin.”
Din. Luke mouthed the name, smiling. Din felt like he was going to combust.
“Uh, if you’re not going to go back in the ocean…” Din paused again. Luke shook his head wildly, almost unbalancing himself. Din forged on. “...would you like to come to my house? I have a bathtub I can fill with salt water for you; it’s probably more comfortable than these rocks.”
Luke pointed to Yes.
“Okay, great.”
It was quite the job getting Luke to his house. He’d thought he was pretty strong, but they had to take several breaks for Din to catch his breath. The merman was slimy in his arms, his scales rough. Luke held on to the (emptied) bucket and the hospital communication board. By the time they got back to the house, the sun was beginning to set, Din’s arms and shirt were rubbed raw, and Grogu was angry—at least, he was until he saw what Din had in his arms.
Grogu squealed. His device read out, “Mermaid! Mermaid! Mermaid!” He did a little dance, flapping his arms and twirling excitedly in the doorway.
“Move, kid,” Din grit out, muscles shaking. Luke waved from his arms.
Grogu got out of the way and Din made it all the way into the bathroom before he had to set Luke down again lest he drop him. Luke shivered on the cold tile. Din had to reach over him to turn on the tap. Grogu waited in the doorway, watching.
“Oh—sorry, do you need salt water?”
Luke pointed to Yes, his hands shaking. His golden-blond hair was drying now, into thick waves around his gills. Some of the blue spots on his skin were turning colorless, as well, which probably wasn’t great.
“Kid, stay with him a minute, I’m gonna get salt water.” Din pulled the drain open and stood, shaking off the water.
More buckets. More trips back and forth to the shore. It took more than Din had thought to fill up the bathtub. Luke splashed himself every so often as he waited. Grogu had brought in the whole folder of laminated communication boards, and pulled down the laminated booklet on a hook from the bathtub, and he and Luke were engaged in a vibrant conversation that meant that Din had to watch where he stepped lest he slip.
Finally, the tub was full, and Din hauled Luke up one last time, and into the water. Luke slapped his tail excitedly, splashing water everywhere. Grogu squealed, raising his little hands up to the sky. Din was entranced by the water shining off Luke’s blue scales, the almost translucent…skin?...on the bottom fin, the rigid, darker blue spines that held it together.
An alarm shook Din out of his thoughts.
He stood. “I’ve got to make dinner and get everything set up for the night. Are you two good here?”
Luke held up a beach vocabulary board and pointed to Yes. Grogu squealed again, nodding vigorously.
“Try not to make too much of a mess,” Din said. He put two towels on the floor in front of the tub, which soaked up some of the water. He held back a sigh. Fighting mold was a constant battle, in a building so close to the ocean. Hopefully any mold-related damages wouldn’t get taken out of his paycheck, even if they were in the bathroom and therefore probably his fault.
Attending to his regular duties kept Din’s mind off the merman in his bathroom for a while. He stood outside long enough to get a sense of the weather, and reported it on the radio, then listened to the airwaves for a while to see if there were any nearby boaters that needed rescuing—an über-rare occurrence, on this island. He briefly entertained the idea of radioing in his “rescue” of Luke, but what would he say? “I found a merman”? Saying that would be a one-way ticket to a psych eval if not a hospital stay - in other words, losing this safe haven where he and his son lived. Besides, without the merman in front of him, the whole thing felt like a dream. A dream that left raw skin on his chest and arms. A dream he wouldn’t breathe a word about.
He walked around the perimeter of the lighthouse and the station house, noting down any damages that would need repair or repainting soon. Took inventory of foodstuffs—they were starting to run low, but a supply was due in a week, and they had the garden, as long as a storm didn’t take it out. Tended the garden—ripped out some kudzu that kept somehow finding its way onto this isolated island, squirted bugs off the rosemary with one of Grogu’s little water guns. Checked on the water filters, generators, and radio antenna. Luckily everything was in decent order in spite of a day of neglect.
The sun was well and truly set by the time that Din went back inside the station house and started making dinner—chicken fingers, Grogu’s favorite. After some hesitation, he threw some frozen fish sticks on the baking tray as well. Maybe Luke would eat them. Din hadn’t gone fishing in a few weeks; Grogu had had him working their way through a craft book Cara had brought them at the last supply drop, which didn’t leave a lot of time for much beyond his daily duties, time consuming as they were. If Luke wanted fresh fish, Din could go fishing tomorrow.
He stacked up three plates on his arms and brought them into the bathroom. Not a large bathroom to begin with, it was a crowded space between the adult, the kid, and the mermaid. Setting his own on the white marbled sink countertop, he handed a plate of chicken fingers and broccoli to Grogu and a plate of fish sticks to Luke.
“It’s fish,” he explained. “With breadcrumbs.” At Luke’s blank look, Din hastily explained, “Bread is, uh, it comes from grain, wheat, and so it’s kind of…like…well, it’s a carbohydrate. I dunno if you have those in…the ocean. Try it, and tell me if you can eat it, or if you need something else.” He sorted through Grogu’s communication boards scattered on the tile floor, and found one with ocean creatures, which he set on the rim of the bathtub.
Grogu turned his nose up at the broccoli with a huff.
“Come on, kid, you’ve gotta have vegetables.” Din was too tired to really argue the point tonight, but Grogu didn’t need to know that.
Luke reached one dripping hand out of the tub and pointed to the broccoli on Grogu’s plate, with an encouraging sort of Go on expression, nodding. The broccoli got a little damp at the touch of his pale finger. Din grimaced, sure that the salt water would ruin whatever little chance there was of getting the kid to eat his vegetables.
Grogu surprised him by digging in.
Din blinked.
Alright then. He’d keep slightly soggy in mind, on his list of ‘things that get Grogu to eat.’ Kids were mysterious creatures sometimes.
Din ate his own plate of chicken fingers and broccoli sitting on the closed toilet seat, watching the two of them interact. It was, of course, mostly silent, occasionally interspersed with one of Grogu’s noises like “ba!” Luke picked at his fishsticks (after scraping off the breading), Grogu picked at his chicken fingers. Their hands were pretty occupied with the boards. At this angle, he couldn’t see all that they pointed to, but he saw the fairytale board, ocean, and mythology. And home.
.
.
.
After they finished eating, Din cleared the plates, and let Grogu and Luke talk for another hour while he cleaned up and checked the weather again.
“Alright kid, bedtime.”
“Ba!” Grogu said angrily, his little face scrunched up. Din’s heart melted in spite of himself.
“No, come on, it’s time for bed.”
Luke waved his hand for Grogu’s attention. Once he had it, he exaggeratedly stretched and yawned, then put his hands together and leaned his head against them, breathing big in, and out. If he was underwater, Din was sure that there would be enormous bubbles coming out of his mouth, adding to the effect.
Grogu giggled. Luke peeked with one eye and smiled, then went right back to it.
Din gathered up all the communication boards and knocked them up on the counter, making them into a neat stack. He grabbed Grogu’s hand.
“Come on, I’ll sing to you.”
Luke broke out of his acting and waved goodbye, flapping his hand.
“I’ll check on you before I go to bed,” Din promised over his shoulder. He left the door open a crack, so that Luke could hear them move around and know that he hadn’t been left in the house alone.
Luckily Grogu’s room had a bathroom attached to it, so he could still have a quick bath—the salt water he and Luke had been splashing in all evening didn’t count—and brush his teeth before bed. Din brushed his teeth beside Grogu, glad for once that he still kept his toothbrush on his nightstand instead of in the main bathroom, an old habit from more chaotic days.
Finally, Din got Grogu clean, dry, in pajamas, and tucked into bed with his favorite frog plushie.
Din knelt beside his bed with a groan, cursing old injuries and unstretched muscles. “Alright, kid, what do you want me to sing?”
Grogu made grabby hands for his device. Din pulled it off the charger and handed it over. Grogu navigated through the pages swiftly, before finally selecting, “Sun.”
“Alright.” Din cleared his throat, and began to sing. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me hap-py, when skies are gray.”
Grogu snuggled down in his blankets, clutching his favorite Froggie close to his chest, watching Din with absolute love and trust in his eyes. It made Din’s heart clench. Stars, he loved this kid. He would move heaven and earth for him. He had, when he’d rescued him. Although really, it was Din that had been rescued that day.
He reached a hand out and caressed the soft brown hair atop Grogu’s head. “You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take, my sun-shine a-way.” He kissed his son’s forehead. “You all ready for sleep, big guy?”
Grogu squealed softly.
“Alright.” Din pressed his forehead to Grogu’s one last time as he took his device and set it on the bedside table, and turned out the light. “If you need anything, just yell.”
He closed the door softly, leaving just a crack to let light through.
Luke was waiting in the bathroom, arms folded on the rim of the bathtub, his head resting on top. He perked up when Din came in, but not much.
“How’s your, uh, oxygen?”
Luke gave a thumbs up.
“Tired?”
Luke nodded.
“Yeah, me too.” His muscles were certainly sore from lugging all that water and the merperson. He needed to work out more, probably. As busy as this job kept him, it didn’t maintain his physical fitness the way he used to. He’d let himself get…soft, as Grogu’s dad.
“You good for the night? Need any fresh water?”
Luke shook his head. Thankfully. Din didn’t particularly want to go out in the pitch dark. It would be hard to hold a flashlight and a full bucket at the same time.
“Can you write?” At Luke’s nod, Din took out a weather resistant notepad and pen and set them on the rim of the bathtub beside Luke’s head. “We’re expecting a supply run in a day or so. If you need anything, or want anything, I can radio shore and have it delivered then.”
The merman perked up. Thank you!!! he wrote, with three exclamation marks. Din huffed a laugh.
Luke wrote, head bowed, for a while. Din watched his golden hair, long dried except around his…gills, bounce softly, reflecting the overhead light. It was mesmerizing, like watching light bounce off of water.
When Luke held up the notepad again, Din had to shake himself a little to refocus.
Salmon
Oysters
Something soft to lay on the side
Something I can help you with, as payment for taking me in
Din blinked. “I don’t need you to help me with anything.”
Luke’s gaze was pleading. No: Begging.
Din shook his head. “Really. Most of my job you can’t help me with anyway; unless you can repaint the lighthouse or pull weeds.”
Luke frowned, his lip stuck out. Din couldn’t help having a little thrill at the sight. It was adorable.
“Really! I guess I could…” He really thought about it. He supposed…that the counter could use a little basket for his keys. One of Grogu’s favorites from the craft book was basket-weaving. He could show Luke how to do it, and thus keep them both occupied, and Luke could feel useful. “Do you know how to weave baskets?”
Luke nodded eagerly.
“I’ll collect some materials for you from the wildflower garden tomorrow. Grogu can help.” Din broke off with a yawn. “I’ll tell our supplier to get the rest of it. Sleep well.”
Luke pointed at Din and mimed sleeping, with his head on his hands, then nodded as if to say You too.
Din smiled and turned to go. He paused in the doorway with his hand on the light switch.
“On or off?”
Luke tilted his head, brow furrowed. To demonstrate, Din flicked the lights off, then back on. Then again, saying out loud which was which.
“Thumbs up, on. Thumbs down, off.” He showed how to do it as he spoke. Luke gave a thumbs down. “Lights off it is,” he said, turning them off. “Goodnight. See you in the morning.”
He left the door cracked open again and made his way up the stairs, stifling a yawn.
He wouldn’t be surprised if the bathroom was empty in the morning. Weirder things had happened.
Although, if he was honest with himself—no, weirder things hadn’t happened. Sure, he’d had some odd jobs in his old life, but none of it had involved the supernatural. No, it was all kingpins and businessmen and whistleblowers, hackers, grifters, thieves, and the occasional unopened suitcase. Once, on his last job, a child. Never a merman.
Well, this made two that he’d kept instead of killed. Two that he’d saved.
communication cards are a useful tool | i use my AACs cause they help me communicate
this was is our first attempt at communication cards. we made 2 sets. the muse is our system persona Dream, but its very doodle like and basic art.
we need to make more, cause we want to be able to use low tech to no tech communication. we have 1 set of shopping related communication cards we bought long ago.
we have made some paper communication boards in a paper portfolio thing. we need more no tech communication boards to have in case. we need more ways to communicate incase we can't use our phone or tablet AAC and TTS apps. we need to collect. - The Dreamdrop System
here's our home board side to side and up and down! we've been working on it lots and adding picture on CoughDrop (this AAC) if you know a blog or place where we can get AAC photos let us know!!
ID: letterboards, coreboards, communication cards, and two PODD books spread out on a pink and purple crochet blanket. End ID
ID: Two PODD books on a pink and purple crochet blanket. End ID
ID: Five different color letterboards spread out on a pink and purple blanket. End ID
ID: Six communication boards layed out out on a pink and purple blanket. End ID
ID: Two LAMP words for life communication boards, one high contrast the other not.
ID: Three stacks of communication cards on a pink background. End ID
Kiku has a few other communication boards that are scattered through the house and Kiku didn't remember to get them and Kiku also has a picture card binder, a visual schedule, and 1 tactile symbol (want to have a whole collection one day). There might also be some other things that Kiku can't think of right now.
there's many forms of nonverbal communication, not just a AAC app, there's text to speech apps, sign language, communication cards, communication boards, gestures, letter boards, written communication, etc etc
we need more low tech communication so we need to work on our communication cards and start getting more low tech communication cards to use we only have 2 communication cards sets we made , 1 we bought, and some communication boards we printed and put in a sheet book
