here for the space daddies

Anonymity—what a luxurious, puzzling word. He considers it, rolling it over in his mind. He never really thought about it until now: a life forged willingly without the mantle of the Mandalorian creed on his shoulders. What would it mean to enter a room and slip into a seat at a table with nary a head turning  to stare at him? What would it feel like to till a patch of his own earth, shrouded in the safety of a dense forest? No longer the Mandalorian, but Din. Din Djarin, fully man, fully human.

Even when he was solely responsible for Grogu, Din rarely considered the future. He knew he would protect the Child until his last, but he never thought about after—after his body grew too old to continue taking and fighting and slicing through the galaxy with a double-edged sword. But After now stares at him in the face. Rather, After lays draped against his chest, lulled to sleep by the sound of winter battering the ramparts. 

He is tired. Tired of the relentless push and pull of the galaxy. Tired of coming within a hair’s breadth of losing you to some idiot with a faster trigger pull. Tired of existing somewhere between human and machine.

The echo of his thoughts must wake you. You sit up, warm and drowsy, half-lidded eyes searching for his in the dimly lit room. When you find him already looking at you, the ghost of a smile pulls at your mouth. You lift a hand, and he stiffens. A moment passes, his eyes flicking back and forth between yours, before you settle your palm against his cheek. Your thumb rubs slow circles over his cheekbone.

“Mando…” It is not a question nor a statement, simply a whisper of affection in the pre-dawn hours.

He swallows past the lump in his throat, past the urge to pick up his helmet from the ground and return to the swaddle of safety found there. “Did you sleep?”

“Yeah.” You remove your hand from his face to run your fingers through your sleep-matted hair. “Great, actually. Did you?”

He just shrugs.

“Sleep has never been your strong suit.”

“No, not really.”

You slide from bed to stretch your arms over your head. Your shirt rides up, revealing the narrow cotton of your underwear—and the bruises forming over your hips and thighs. Blood stains the hem of your shirt, and a long frayed rip exposes your left shoulder. His jaw clenches, his fist flexing and unflexing beneath the coverlet. 

If Crik weren’t already dead he would pound the motherfucker to dust.

“You look pretty beat up.” He means it merely as a statement, but the words fall out of his mouth like an accusation. Thankfully, you turn on a laugh.

“I guess I am. Not totally sure about the fresher situation here. Plus I was busy trying to save your sorry ass. Sorry I didn’t have time to wash up.” 

Din sighs. He plants his palms on the mattress, hissing through his teeth as he goes to swing his legs over the side of the bed. His ribs hurt, his muscles aching and sore as they work to repair themselves. Favoring his uninjured side, he puts a fist on his opposite thigh then motions with two fingers.

“Come here.” 

You roll your eyes, but appease him, moving to stand between his legs. His hands fall to the gentle curve of your waist. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

“Shut up.” You shove his shoulder, eyes skittering to the side as a busk laugh fills your throat.

“What?” He can’t help some of the humor tinging his voice now either.

“Touchy-feely isn’t you.”

He tilts his head. “But you are. Even more so when you’re dirty like this.”

“Yeah, dirty ‘cause I was busy killing people to keep you from dying!”

“Exactly.” 

Din’s hands slide from your waist to your ass, his fingertips kneading the soft flesh there. He gives you a gentle swat then angles his mouth upward to kiss your neck. You relax into his hold, palms skimming the taut skin of his shoulders, his arms. You sigh when his tongue darts out to wet your pulsepoint. 

He is working himself to hard at this rate. Between the feel of your ass beneath his hands and the soft skin he slides beneath his tongue, he can practically feel his heartbeat in his cock. 

Nudging his head upward, you press your mouth to his. But instead of the demanding, all-consuming kiss he expected, your lips remain firm and unyielding. You push away with a measure of reluctance.

“As much as I want to fuck you again in Crik’s bed…”

He finishes the sentence: “We should go.”

“Yeah…”

You’re right, he knows. You usually are. Hoth is truly unlivable, even for short periods of time. He isn’t sure what remains in this hell hole after yesterday’s fight, and his injured ribs means he isn’t much help for rooting through boxes of worthless junk. Still, this feeling of openness, of absolute freedom settles in his chest like a root.

He could see himself getting used to this slow, syrupy feeling. No more speeding through hyperspace, no more clock ticking down to his ultimate ruin. He could do it—with you by his side.

“Help me up.” He extends his elbow, shifting his weight nearer the edge of the bed.

“Okay, old man.”

Huffing, he rises to his feet, his joints all but creaking with the movement. “I can still put you over my knee, girl.”

“Where have I heard that before?” you quip. You grin up at him, and the light dancing in your eyes is enough to make his old man legs wobble. Gods, he loves you. 

Where indeed.

He thumbs the underside of your chin then jerks his head toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

/

DAY NULL—LOCATION: THE SUNDER

At the table in the galley you withdraw your datapad and place it on the slab of metal in front of you. A blast of cool air from the overhead vent lifts a chill on your arms, and you hunch inward, wishing you’d brought your jacket from the other room. No reason to get it now, not until you’ve finished the task at hand.

The last few days have eddied the memory of this ship, this place. What was once your first home onboard is now a simple galley kitchen, ill-used and void of human clutter. Ghosts of the past hang in the air, though. You can sense it—her, the memory of you before love changed your makeup. 

You lift a hand to touch the faded scar on your cheek. Gods, that feels like eons ago, your body pressed against the bulkhead, Din’s blaster notched at your lower back. She will always be a part of you, that wretched girl. She has been there since your girlhood: in the sibling squabbles with Jeelia; in the teenage arguments with your mother; in the first time you broke a boy’s heart simply because you could. Try as you might, she will never truly disappear—and for that you are glad.

You swipe open your datapad and make quick work of finding the communication panel. Though remote, Inora still possesses the capabilities for interstellar communications. Well, your parents don’t have that ability exactly, but the local magistrate does, and he is quick to take a few credits in exchange for personal communications via the government’s radio. You position your cracked datapad against a water jug and press record.

“Hey,” you begin, and the words fall from your lips like flower petals on a gentle breeze.

It is a short message, but not without heart. Your parents deserve to know the outcome of your hunt for justice. You spare them the gory details. You are fine, Din is fine, and the job is done.

“I’m sending you this,” you say as you close out the message, holding up the twine necklace you pilfered from around Crik’s neck. “I’m not sure what it meant to him. For all I know it’s just a piece of junk. But I took it, and it shows that I did it—for her and for our family.” Looking down at the moon rock in your palm, you run your finger over the jagged and dull stone. “I want you to have it.”

You make eye contact with the camera once more. “I’m not sure when I’ll be home. I don’t know what else there is for me out here. Mando—Din—we’re together until the very end. I just wanted you to know that Jeelia can rest now. We can all rest now.”

You close out the message with a promise to visit in the future, and you press send without reviewing the holoprojection for mistakes. It’s better that way. What you said you meant: it is now time to rest. For everyone.

You aren’t sure what your next step will be. Now that Rendell Crik is dead, the possibilities seem both endless and slim at the same time. You could continue on with the Guild. Technically, your year with Mando hasn’t yet expired. The idea of fulfilling your contract to Karga seems less and less appealing since the rage in your gut has simmered. There was a time you enjoyed working your father’s wheatfields. Maybe there is something there to explore…

Or maybe Mand’alore will take precedence now. All that shit Mando told you about being the Mand’alor’s mate… Now seems as good a time as any to hunt down the truth about that little nugget.

A voice crackles over the intercom system. “Scout, meet me in the hull. You left your shit down here, and I’m not cleaning up after you.”

A wry smile twists your lips as you push away from the table. 

Despite the constant twisting of the universe outside the ship, some things you hope will never change.

/

DAY NULL—LOCATION: THE SUNDER

Din finds you in the cockpit. 

You sit in the pilot’s chair, legs pulled up beneath you, chin in your hand. Space whirls overhead, spinning past at breakneck speed, but the whizzing of the stars don’t seem to register on your face. Not today, anyway. 

Over the last two days, since departing Hoth’s bitter climate, the ship has floated through a thick atmosphere. Thoughts cloud the air in the Sunder, both his and yours. Nothing has been said between you, but he can see it written on your face in bright, nearly fluorescent ink. He’s sure when he removes his helmet at night you see the same written on his own skin. It is a question of the future, of what next, that plagues the ship. 

He came to his conclusion not ten minutes ago, and it took him seven of those minutes to muster up the courage to tell you. So much of the last one-hundred-and-some days did not go as planned, and his final decision is one that jeopardizes your entire future. He knows deep in his gut what you will say, but he can’t help the niggling feeling that this will be his final sin against you. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, and he is glad he resumed his helmet after his time in meditative thought. He may never outgrow the comfort of anonymity beneath this tin can. 

He sucks in a deep breath.

“I’m done,” he announces. “With bounty hunting.”

The chair spins as you turn to face him. “Oh?”

“For now.”

“When did you decide this?” Your question is not accusatory, as you may have once been. You are simply asking, your head tilted to the side as you process his announcement in conjunction with whatever thoughts swirl in your own head.

“Just now, but I’ve been thinking it over since Hoth.” 

He steps further into the cockpit, lowering himself to sit on one of the two stairs descending from the small lounge near the door. He removes his helmet as he sits and places it by his side. He bites his tongue to keep his gaze trained on your face though every system in his body screams to look away, to hide his face. Time—this unfurling will take time, he is sure. But it is time and privilege he is willing to give you.

“I need a break,” he continues. “More than I did after Grogu. 

“Where will you go?”

“I was thinking Hegora. There’s a few colonies there. Quiet, unbothered. I’d like some time to rest, to figure out what the next move is.”

You nod, and for the first time, make no effort to argue with him or stake your claim on the future. “Okay,” you say.

He arches a brow. “Okay? Just okay? Nothing you want to add?”

You shake your head. “No—just okay. It sounds fine to me. I think we both could use some time. We haven’t had a moment’s rest since I got here.”

“So you’re coming with me? You’re staying?”

You release a put upon sigh as you stand from the pilot’s chair. Your bare feet make hardly a whisper on the carpet as you approach him. Knees hitting the carpet, you twine your fingers between his ungloved hands. Your thumb follows the pattern of his family name inked on his knuckles. 

Finally, you raise your eyes from his hands. Moisture sparkles over your irises, and he thinks you are the most beautiful thing in all of the Maker’s creation. “I am with you until the bitter end, Din Djarin.”

When you lift his hands to kiss his knuckles, he clears his throat, suddenly tense with emotion. “Until the end then,” he whispers, and you nod once—final, established.

It is done.

Standing, Din moves to the pilot’s chair and pulls you to his lap with a gentle arm around your waist. You nestle into his hold, and he inhales the scent of your rose-pressed soap. He likes feeling you this way, with his face free to savor your soft breath, your eyelashes against his brow.

A beeping on the dashboard cracks the comfortable silence. 

Din peers around your shoulder at the incoming message. He huffs as he presses a button.

The message is from Karga, sent spiraling across galaxies to fill the cockpit with his anxious, tinny voice. “Mando, I just got your message. What’s this about you retiring? I know I encouraged it when the girl came on, but there’s too much happening now. We really can’t spare you. You or the girl.”

A rueful smirk pulls at your lips. Your eyes slide to Din’s, humor winking at the corners of your mouth. “Poor Karga,” you murmur. The transmission continues, more of Karga’s bargaining blasting through the cockpit speakers. 

“Never mind him.” 

As Din moves to seal his lips over yours, he fumbles with the transmission controls, half-bind as he sinks into the warmth of your mouth; a feeling, he’s sure, he will never quite get used to. You beak away, grinning wide, long enough to end the message: a quick slap of your hand to the flight deck. However haphazard the slap, the blinking red light disappears, and you turn your gaze to his. Your hand, pressed to his chest, sears his flesh.

“What has been joined together, let no man put asunder,” you whisper. 

Din does not know where the words come from, but the syllables blanket his heart. He glances at your reflection in the windshield: him, unburdened by the darkness of his helm, his arms wrapped around your limbs, holding you close; your forehead against his temple, hair a curtain over your face as your breath fans his ear. Entwined like muscle and bone, like vine and the branch; separate you are nothing and together you are whole.

With a measured breath, she enters the cantina. It is loud and crowded, especially for midafternoon. Lunch rush maybe; though by the looks of it, any food served here runs the risk of being laced with poison. 

At the counter she finds an older man with a dark complexion, weathered in the face, snow white at his temples and beard. He finishes a transaction and looks like he may skip over her in the line gathered at the curved bar, but she withdraws a blaster and slams it on the stone-work surface. His eyes drop to the blaster then flick to her. His expression betrays nothing, other than a brief glimmer of interest.

“I’m looking for Greef Karga.” She speaks with all the attitude that has hardened like a protective shell in her gut. Though half-broken and a piece of utter shit, her finger hovers over the blaster’s trigger. It won’t cause much damage if she shoots; it’s more for show than anything. She has the sinking feeling the man can tell, too.

The man arches a brow, his eyes following a slow path from the crown of her head to the tread of her mud-caked boots. “What’s your name?”

She gives it to him, but sees no sign of recognition. Relief is a cool balm to her overheated skin., Perhaps her sins have not followed her as far as the Outer Rim. 

The old man stabs something into a datapad before sliding it inside of his waistband. He jerks his head to the back of the bar. A storeroom door stands open, a gentle breeze wafting a ragged curtain attempting to disguise the doorway. She stares at the room and wonders if she should turn tail and flee.

A bounty hunter for the Bounty Hunters’ Guild—who is she kidding? She may be scrappy but she sure as hell isn’t skilled enough to be a fighter. Still, it’s either this or slinking back home and finding out what retribution awaits her there. She’ll take the odds that whatever—whoever—waits in the stormroom can mold her into some sort of an asset to the Guild. Or, if not, they can get rid of her entirely. Really, it makes no difference at this point…

The man—Karga, it must be—leaves his post at the bar, coming around to lay a gentle hand on her shoulder. Instinctively, she stiffens beneath his touch. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything—or remove his hand. He gestures to the storeroom again with his empty palm.