Writing about stuff I like

Abandonment isn’t an issue when you’ve never had someone to be attached to. Din spent many many years with absolutely no one. When his parents died, it felt like he was abandoned, sure, but it was clearly not their decision to leave him. When he was taken in by the Mandalorians, they kept him at an arm’s length. He was a foundling; they cared for him well, taught him The Way and The Creed, fed him well. But he was never adopted into a specific clan, rather passed around the covert like the communal task each family had an obligation to fulfill.

Then he became a bounty hunter. The life was solitary and lonely, cold and bleak. It was rare that Din would team up with other bounty hunters, really only when forced to. The Razor Crest became his baby, his only possession and love besides his blasters and beskar. The thing was a piece of bantha shit, but he kept it in good shape.

Then came the kid. Din knew it was wrong. Bounties are to be turned in and paid for, then you forget the job happened. But when that little green thing stared up at Din, the big brown eyes seeming to stare through the dark black of his visor, he knew he couldn’t. This was a child, a baby with no family and no way to protect itself. He certainly couldn’t turn it over to the hands of the ex-Imperials.

Din experienced his first real attachment with the child. He cares for that little thing more than he’s ever cared about anything. He’d cross galaxies, kill and maim and injure for the sake of the little green baby.

Oh Maker, then he met you.

Din had never seen anything like you. You were playing with the kids in the marketplace, laughing as they ran and played around you, before you squealed in delight at the sight of a little green toddler wandering up to you. He’d climbed in your lap, looked up at you with those big eyes, massive ears twitching. You’d stroked his head and cooed to him before you looked up to find his father; subsequently, you felt your heart fall into your stomach at the sight of the Mandalorian man.

“You’re good with kids.”

Well no shit. You nodded. “Yes. I love them. Is this your son?” you ask, looking back down at the three green fingers wrapped around your thumb.

He nods. “He is a foundling under my care.” He watched as the baby grabbed at the golden armband encircling your bicep. You’re absolutely gorgeous. The armband glows against your skin, your beautiful body evident even through the loose and flowing clothing you wear. “Do you take care of these children as a job?”

You shook your head. “No. We don’t have jobs here, necessarily. They just wanted me to play.” You scanned the man, searching for skin. You found none. “Are you green under there too?”

The Mandalorian did not answer. “I’m looking for a caretaker for the child while I hunt bounties. You’d stay in my ship and care for him. I pay well and you’d get to travel the galaxy.”

“You barely know me,” you laughed, removing the little green baby’s fingers from their tight grip on the gold band on your arm.

He gave a half shrug. “He likes you.”

And you’d agreed. And it’s been almost a full cycle now, a cycle of living in the beat-up ship and caring for the little green baby. You’ve seen the most beautiful and the ugliest of planets, experienced extreme heat and extreme cold. You’ve been to beautiful cities, unique jungles and forests and ice planets.

In that time, you got to know the Mandalorian too. It took quite some time to crack his beskar shell. He hardly talked to you in the first month. Then your persistence had loosened him a little, then a little more, then just enough. You know more of him than any other living being does. He’s told you his name: Din Djarin, a name that flows and stops and radiates the power of the bounty hunter. He told you the story of his childhood, of hunts gone wrong and hunts gone right.

You love listening as he tells you and the child the story of the child’s rescue from the ex-Imperials. The baby snuggles against your lap as his father regales the two of you with the epic battles, the fights Din went through for this little child. You both applaud at the end, and put the baby to bed with a kiss between those big brown eyes.

He’s a wonderful man. You’ve formed an easy friendship with him, one that has honestly progressed on your end. At night, you find yourself fantasizing about what he looks like beneath his armor, how the muscles of his broad shoulders move when he climbs the ladder to the cockpit or lifts the child. You like to think he may feel the same for you, but you don’t push it. You don’t want to push him away.

Din has been away for far too long. He always highballs the dates he gives you, saying that an assignment will take three days when he knows it will only take two or a week when it will only be five days. This is a pattern you’ve come to notice; Din is alway back “early”, but now he is late. Really late.

Before he left, Din had opened your bunk compartment, causing you to groan at the light filtering in. You’ve been sleeping since the Crest made a rocky landing on Nevarro a few hours earlier. “Cyare,” he’d murmured, a rare ungloved hand warm on your bare arm, contact broken by your metal armband. You don’t know what the word means. You hope it’s something good.

“What is it?” You groaned, rolling onto your back to look at him. “Leaving?”

He nodded, the silhouette of his helmet-covered head against the soft light of the hull. “Leaving. I’ll be back in four days at the most.”

You offered him a sleepy smile, one that he could see in the warm glow of the lights you’d installed in the ship to navigate easier at night. “Good luck. May the Force be with you,” you teased, making the normally stoic man chuckle a little.

“Go back to sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

You didn’t protest, rolling over and letting the heaviness of sleep drag you back under.

Now, you really wish you’d have talked with him more then. You’re almost certain you’ll never see him again.

You’re not exactly sure what it was in your brain that triggered the thought. Maybe Din just actually took the amount of time he’d said for once, you thought on the fourth day. But now it’s been eight days, double the amount that he’d told you he’d be gone, and you’re stressed.

He always makes good on his word. He should be back by now. He always does. Did he get injured or killed, maybe captured by the bounty he was stalking? You ponder your ideas aloud as you pace back and forth in the hull of the Razor Crest, the little green baby tucked in his soundproof pram to sleep.

There’s likely a rational explanation. You’re sure there is. Maybe the bounty jumped ship, completely threw Din off of his tracks. Maybe the bounty is more clever than anticipated and Din is working extra just to find them. There’s surely a reason, but a little nagging voice in your head says that something is wrong.

In the first few days following Din’s date to return, your primary worry is that he’s hurt or dead somewhere on this barren planet. There are many other bounty hunters here, in this haven for Guild workers. What if one of them discovered Din still has the baby? What if they were coming for you here next?

Maybe you should go look for him. Maybe he’s injured and needs your help. He could be held by another hunter, or by the ex-Imperials- you can’t even bear to think of them harming Din for taking their precious cargo back. The thought makes you squeeze the little green baby tighter to your chest, even after he gives a whine of annoyance at the pressure.

But Din would never forgive you if you put yourself in harm’s way for him. This planet is dangerous, full of bad people who will do what it takes to get their credits. Most importantly, you can’t leave this ship with the kid. Certainly people here are looking for him. Someone would spot him and you’d be in for disaster. The anxiety fills your days and even seeps into your dreams, making you sleep less and more fitfully. On the eighth day, perhaps the most terrifying idea strikes you: what if Din just... left you?

Of course, there are plenty of signs why he hasn’t. The ship is one of his rare material possessions. He’d never give up the machine that’s been a home to him for the last however many years. Weapons are part of his religion, and he only took a sparse amount with him for this hunt. His prized pulse rifle still hangs in his armory, with an abundance of whistling birds he didn’t take either.

Most importantly, you’re still here with the kid. The baby is practically Din’s son. He adores him… but what if it’s all too much? You’ve become like a little family. That may be too domestic for him. Maybe he’s sick of the responsibility, of caring for two beings when so much of his life has been solitary. Even worse, maybe he’s just sick of you.

There are plenty of rational explanations. You know it. The baby can sense your anxiety, can feel the tension running through the air surrounding you, and he feels it too. He’s fussy, requiring more snacks and more attention. He tugs far too much on your armband and it pinches now, his little claws getting too long. You don’t mind- it’s a distraction, really- but your mind is never fully on feeding the baby, rather hyper analyzing Din’s mind as you know it and hoping he’ll return.

The hours pass. Din doesn’t return. You become more and more certain that he’s abandoned you for good. He isn’t coming back, ever, because he hates you. He was nice to you as a courtesy, nothing more, only as a protector of his child. This type of family is too much for the lone-wolf style man. He can’t do it anymore. You’re on your own.

In your head, the thought of him abandoning you is too much. It weighs heavily on your self-esteem, convincing you that this is all your fault and you’ve done too much, or not enough, or something wrong in general that sent Din packing and gone. He did it because you’re annoying, because he’s sick of you.

Rational thoughts are pushed to the furthest corner of your mind. Your brain is occupied by self hatred, by terror, by a sickening buzzing feeling in your head and chest that feels like a parasite eating you from the inside out.

It’s too much. You fall to the floor, sliding your back down the metal wall. Your rear contacts the floor as the tears fall from your face, your emotions drowning out your senses. You can’t use any of your senses, just think and process the agony your brain is putting you through.

Burying your face in your hands, you finally allow the tears you’ve been holding in all week to flow. It’s a relief, the hot tears streaming down your equally hot face, blood rushing to the surface. The anxiety buzzing in your head has reached a breaking point; you’re sure the tension is boiling your brains, making it bubble and roil as the thoughts pull you down and down so far you feel you’ve fallen through the floor of the Crest and into the dry Nevarro dirt.

You nearly wail, wheezing in air only to expel it in harsh sobs as the fear wraps your body and constricts it. You’re enveloped by it, trapped in a coffin mixed with a tornado mixed with a firestorm and a hurricane.

Then it all stops. The heat is broken by something cold- beskar. You force your eyes to see and they finally perceive that Din is in front of you. Then you feel again, feel the chilled metal all over your skin as he wraps his arms around you. You smell him, his faded soap from whenever he bathed last, his sweat and the smell of the Nevarro dust. You can taste your salty tears. The last sense to come back puts you most at ease: his voice. “Talk to me, please,” Din asks of you.

You nod and try to speak, but you’re still gasping for air, your lungs unable to fill. When you slow down and make yourself breathe, you’re finally able to manage words. “Thought you were gone forever. Thought you left because of me.”

The beskar helmet tilts to the side, taking you in. You’re sure you’re a mess; eyes bloodshot, face tearstained, snot probably all over you as well. Din’s quiet for a moment. “Why would you think that?”

“You said four days. You always come back early, but you were gone for eight days.”

His chest rises and falls slowly beneath the beskar plate. “I know. I’m sorry. But why would you think I’d leave you?”

The tears return. “I don’t know, Din, I-”

“No, shh,” Din murmurs and wipes your face. “No more tears. I’m here.”

Din stands and takes you with him, his arms wrapped tight around your body to bring you to your feet. He walks you to the edge of the bunk and hands you a canteen of water to drink. You look at him and he looks back. There’s a silence and an unspoken battle between the two of you over who will break it.

Din breaks first. “I got the bounty easily. I was late because of… something else.”

Your face falls into a frown. “You took double the amount of time and didn’t tell me? Whatever this ‘something else’ is, it better be worth it.”

Din breathes in and out deeply before producing a soft fabric bag. “I didn’t leave you. I’m back. And… I got you something to show that I’ll never leave you.”

From the bag, his leather-covered hand produces something silver. Your eyes, blurry with tears, take a moment to perceive it: an armband of some silver material- oh, it’s beskar. It’s cold to the touch but you take it from him to admire it and find it is emblazoned with an insignia: a mudhorn. “The symbol of Clan Djarin,” he says gently, though he’s sure you know. It’s on his pauldron. It’s on the baby’s necklace. “We… are a family, aren’t we?”

You don’t respond; rather, you throw your arms around his neck and the tears return, but happily. “We are,” you whimper, your throat constricted by a sob. You cry into his neck, staining the fabric of his cowl and cape with your tears.

He understands they’re good tears, and so he lets them flow. His arms wrap around you and rest on your back, gently rubbing it as you cry into him. As the sobs calm, the tears end, you remain in his arms. Din holds you tight against his chest. “I’ve never made a better decision than hiring you. It was supposed to just be a babysitting job, but… I fell in love.”

Your heart stops and you pull back. “You’re in love? With me?”

Din nods. “I… yes. I am.”

A smile crosses your face, the joy emphasized by how wide your smile is in the presence of your tears. “I love you too,” you manage before your throat squeezes off your words, making you cry happily and hug him yet again.

With your face buried in his neck, you nuzzle your face in and are rewarded with a soft patch of stubbled skin beneath the tip of your nose. You can feel his throat vibrate when he speaks again. “We are a clan of three now. I promise you, I will never leave you. Don’t even entertain the thought again. Understand?”

You nod, not wanting to move your face and lose contact with this intimate spot of him, the first humanness you’ve been able to get beneath the beskar. You kiss the skin there softly. Din knows it’s your answer: understood. I love you.

-

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