Short king - Dek
A/N: finally I have something to nerd out about again
Summary: relationship headcanons disguised as character study
Spoilers for Badlands, this is pretty much just an "ideal timeline" AU of sorts
Romance to Dek is entirely out of question, it´s something he hasn´t thought about often and something that just isn´t on his mind. And why should it? He´s defective and the sole shame of the clan, he knows he can never get married or fall in love. It´s not like he doesn´t want to either, it´s just that he also doesn´t, he´s neutral about the notion itself, but due to his circumstances it´s a topic that just doesn´t exist for him. It only ever comes up when his brother talks about his wife or when he gets to visit his nephews. It´s a great honor to him, especially when Kwei allows him to train with his children, something their father would have never allowed.
He´s glad his mother doesn´t pester him about marriage like she did with Kwei, though he knows it´s only because she wants to ensure the clan´s strong lineage, nobody ever says it in front of Dek anymore but he knows everyone´s still afraid that another child deformed just like him could be born. And he´s scared that this time they would actually kill it and not give it a chance like his brother fought for for him.
Whenever he visits his brother and his family he initially is excited, crafting weapons for the children, mending Kwei´s armor, bringing gifts for his wife. He spends a lot of time with his brother´s family whenever he is on Yautja Prime and the anxiety only sets in whenever he enters their home. He doesn´t even know why, but even after years he still feels anxious. At first it was because Kwei´s wife was...the quiet kind. She was very stern and cold and Dek was convinced she hated him, he felt guilty for meeting his nephews, thinking that Kwei was the one making the decision on his own. Only later did he find out that it was his wife who wanted him to meet her children. She respected him greatly for proving himself.
Still, every time he leaves he feels empty somehow. And for the longest time he doesn´t understand why, he thinks it´s because of the guilt he still feels, because of the way he can never truly accept himself, because even though he has proven himself time after time again, he will always have to. Because no matter how many years passed, he won´t grow, because at the end of the day nobody would want to be seen with him. And then it hits him: this life simply wasn´t meant for him. It was something he never could have and that thought didn´t make him sad, it was a truth he had known his entire life and yet realising it for himself was different than he had anticipated. Disappointing? Perhaps. He hadn´t thought about his own misgivings in years, deciding not to dwell on it now that his father was dead. Now that nobody could ever say those things to his face again.
He never quite learned to deal with his feelings, be that grief, sadness or self-loathing. They all just turned into rage, the only emotion he allowed himself to feel because it enforced his hunts. He keeps it all to himself, he doesn´t have any friends and telling his brother or his wife is out of the question because he doesn´t want to bother them even more than he already does.
He lives his life even more isolated than other yautjas, constantly on the move. Him, Thia and Bud travel all over the galaxies and Dek enjoys the other planets much more than his home one, he gets to meet all sorts of different species and thanks to Thia he gets to converse with them as well, get to learn about their culture and mostly just acts as a bounty hunter of sorts and helps out the planets with their resident predators in taking them out and collecting the trophies. It feels strange to him since it is against everything in his nature and upbringing, but being surrounded by his chosen family makes him feel less lonely. He still has trouble being on Yautja Prime for an extended amount of time, it still is haunted by his father for him and he swears he hears his voice every time he returns.
Falling in love happens unprompted and suddenly, so much so it feels like a pitfall. Not only is he not prepared for it, but it´s yet another feeling he can´t sort and doesn´t know what to do with. Of course he´ll be quiet about it for the longest time, trying to ignore it. It´s genuinely awkward because it´s obvious for everyone involved he is in love but he just doesn´t do anything about it. There genuinely is only one scenario I can think of in which he would be the first one to court but I´ll get into that in a bit.
Once he figures out what he´s feeling and why there´s this dreadful veil that covers his thoughts. He can´t be in love, he´s not allowed to. Nothing will come out of it. It´s not allowed to. So he pushes those thoughts to the side until they hurt, forcing himself to think about anything but the one who stole his heart. Distractions eventually don´t work anymore so he seeks them out and does the most enraged confession you can imagine. Nobody has ever yelled that much about catching feelings, as if it was a disease, a curse really. And the entire time he hopes they will reject him so that he could move on with his life. But they don´t. And now he´s even more confused.
Genuinely doesn´t understand how anyone could love him back, he still thinks his brother is only taking pity on him, deep down he knows he loves him but he can´t admit that to himself because to him, he doesn´t deserve it. They would definitely have to be patient with him. Courting him takes ages, he refuses almost every gift they get him, every gesture but they don´t give up. After all the feelings are already out in the open, now there just needs to be something done about it.
He doesn´t seem like the conventional relationship type so it is never made official. At some point he just accepts the courting and that somebody is by his side now, just in a different way than Thia. He´s super shy about receiving affection at first but completely casual about giving it. He constantly is touching his partner in some way, to make sure they´re in his sight and not in danger, to make sure they´re real as stupid as that sounds. He´s very clingy in private, mostly due to him being so touchstarved.
now, with a female yautja things would be different, not much but things would definitely be more traditional. let me set the scene:
He´s on one of his visits to Yautja Prime again, his brother´s wife has been uncharacteristically gleeful today, almost excited. It´s strange seeing her like this, but Kwei explains to him that one of her childhood friends is returning from a long hunt today. In my headcanon (as someone who hasn´t read the comics or novels yet) the female yautja live and train together as a community within the clans until they reach their official hunting age and receive their cloaks. So they grow very close and sometimes stay in contact after their training, depending on their way of life (be that hunting, scouring for resources or staying on Yautja Prime). Which makes it a big deal when someone does come back. As for the female yautja in question, she had been on a years long hunt, on a mission to discover new planets and add them to their navigation systems. She would only return after she found a new one or an unexplored one.
And today was the day. Dek didn´t quite know what to think of her, he wasn´t fond of meeting new people from his clan, tired of being in defensive mode all the time, not wanting to go over his disfunctions once again, not wanting to prove himself again, not when he´s been going on hunts for years now. He didn´t want to feel that small ever again. But as soon as he sees her ship landing none of that mattered anymore. He completely missed his family going outside to greet her, just rooted in his spot as he watched her exit the ship, dragging the biggest spine he had ever seen behind her. The massive head was still attached too, it was clean work. He didn´t even want to imagine how long that took. Beautiful. There were a few bones on her armor as well, memories of hunts that were special to her.
And when she finally enters to greet him after his brother had to apologize for his behavior, he´s awestruck. She exudes sheer power but doesn´t look down on him, her eyes are kind, the loathing look in them that was present in every other clan member, just didn´t exist with her. Now, Dek wasn´t shy by a long shot but with her he could barely get two words out.
In this moment he just knows he has to know her. He doesn´t even think about courting rituals or the way things could be perceived when he invites her to his ship to show her his trophies. She, in return, liked how bold he was, having heard a lot about him she was curious about the runt. It was true, he was rather small and his fang was mangled, his face was shaped differently too. But he still was yautja. And he was strong, she could sense it. He was eager to hunt which she adored. Because for most yautja at some point the hunt just turned into routine of sorts, it was their life. But the yautja that were like her and enjoyed every hunt as if it was their first, they were special to her.
She´s impressed when she sees his ship, wanting to know everything about every trophy he´s collected, especially those of the creatures she didn´t know. She didn´t think there would be any left of those, but Dek too was a traveller like her and he had been to planets she hadn´t been to before. At this point admiration was born. She, taking up the courting process, invited him to her ship as well to show him everything. He hadn´t been as excited since he killed his father. Every creature she had hunted was so big, he wondered just how strong she was and just how it would feel to be lifted and thrown by her.
Kwei and his wife would definitely talk to Dek about proper courting etiquette and how to go about things, what he wanted from this union, if he wanted something to last or something fleeting. And Dek never was one to chase fleeting dreams, he knew he wanted her from the second he saw her. He never had felt so strongly in his life before and he doesn´t know anything about marriage, but he knows that he wants to keep courting her. He knows he wants to be hers.
And so he makes the first step and brings her a decorated trophy and some handcrafted pieces of armor for her. And just like his brother told him he gets down on both knees, lifts the gifts over his head and asks her to accept them. When she does it´s like his heart stops completely, she in return gifts him more weapons he could use. Now that it was clear they both wanted the same thing it was time for their first hunt together. It was a tradition to build trust and served as a first date of sorts.
The wedding itself is nothing more than a sparring with the husband yielding to his wife, a showcase of undying loyalty and the only time in a yautja life that they will ever yield.