Hope you don't mind a quick little ficlet about eating together...
Din knows it’s normal, but what even is ‘normal’ to a man who grew up in a culture where everyone ate alone, in silence? Communal eating like this is still alien to him. Breaking bread next to each other, sharing conversation around chewing, locking eyes… It’s bizarre and occasionally uncomfortable (like being without the helmet sometimes is).
But he has to admit, it’s growing on him.
The first time is on the Kuiil, after the first revelation. The first of the handful of meals they shared properly, unhidden, before the Battle of Sundari. The food is meagre basic rations, the kind sold at every spaceport kiosk across the length and breadth of the galaxy. And uj’alayi, because, well… uj’alayi is uj’alayi. It’s tradition.
Grogu devours his food with the same unbothered ravenousness as always – the kid will never turn down food. Luke, on the other hand, is snatching glances, and frankly it just makes Din self-conscious. He’s already squirming at the thought of eating under someone else’s gaze (what if he gets food in his moustache? What if he gets something in his teeth? What if he spills something down himself? What if it goes down the wrong way and he chokes to death? What if what if what if—), so the darting eyes are making him even more nervous.
“What?” he demands, perhaps a bit more sharply than he intended. Grogu pauses, ears flattening, staring up at him. Luke just blinks.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Do I have something on my face?” Din gestures at himself, slightly desperate. He’ll fix it, anything to just get Luke’s gaze off him and the flitterflies banished from the pit of his stomach.
Luke’s eyes go wide as he shakes his head vehemently. “No!”
“Then why do you keep… staring?” Din finishes lamely, the back of his neck on fire.
To his surprise, Luke’s cheeks burn bright pink and he hides his face with one of his hands, groaning softly. Din is just confused.
“Sorry,” Luke mumbles, peeking out from between his fingers. “I just… I can’t really believe I can see your face, now. I can’t believe we’re eating together.” He chuckles, something pretty and bright and far giddier than Din is used to hearing from him. “I’m afraid if I look away, you’ll disappear, but then when I do look, I get embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed?” Din echoes.
Luke waves him away, not meeting his eyes. “You’re handsome, Din.”
Din isn’t really a blusher, but those words set his face aflame. He stares down at the debris of his ration pack, unable to even formulate a reply, feeling like his own body is too tight for him. His heart hammers in his chest, against his ribs like it wants to escape and soar out the airlock and into the vastness of space, unable to be contained. He wants to laugh, he wants to sing, he wants to curl up into a ball and never emerge, and he has no idea what to do with these feelings. He’d never even thought he could feel them.
“You too,” he instead chokes out, daring to glance up at Luke. Luke’s blush deepens, and he grins, half-hidden by his hand. Their gazes lock, and maybe that’s what they mean, those silly holobooks, when they say ‘get lost in each other’s eyes’.
Beside them Grogu makes a disgusted noise, and that breaks the spell.
Din’s lost track of how many times they’ve eaten together, by now.
Today is no different except for the uncharacteristic heatwave that’s plaguing Sundari, seeping through the ray shield dome and into the streets and houses of a half-ruined city that definitely can’t yet afford the expense of air cooling. And despite temperature controlled armour, every Mandalorian is feeling the heat.
Din had come in, baking hot, from crop inspections and headed straight to the bedroom. Once there he’d shed helmet and armour, piece by ritualistic piece placed on its stand, until he was just in his flightsuit. And then the shirt came off, that, unlike the hallowed beskar’gam, tossed haphazardly to the floor. He then wet a towel and slapped it over the back of his neck.
And in that state of disarray he wanders into the kitchen with a groan.
Luke turns away from the nanowave stove. “Welcome ho—oooooome.” He raises his eyebrows. “Ok, then.”
Din looks down and scoffs. “You’ve seen it before.”
“Irrelevant,” Luke retorts easily. “I like to see it.” He pauses. “Maybe not at the dinner table, though.”
“Well, it’s too hot,” Din grumbles.
“You’re setting a terrible example,” Luke says, shaking his head as he carries various small bowls and plates over to the table with the Force.
“Abah!” says the young and impressionable child in question, taking his seat on his pile of cushions at the low table and eyeing his bowl of soup hungrily. Luke hands him it and he slurps happily.
Din scans over their meal – simple fare, because Luke isn’t an adventurous cook and Mandalore is still running on fumes, including food imports – and picks up his fork. He’s starving. All day spent shadowing Bo-Katan and Syben Rook in the quarter of the city dedicating to actually feeding their people is exhausting. And as Luke tells him about Grogu’s day, he realises, with a jolt, how easy this is. How second-nature, how habitual. How little of his life he’s done this for, and how thoughtlessly, right now, he entered the room with no armour. Hell, with no shirt on.
The comfort, the serenity he feels around his family… it brings a lump to his throat. He doesn’t need to worry, because he is safe. He doesn’t need to hide himself, because he is loved. He can shed his outer shell and be who he is inside, and he can eat a meal with them. He can take a bite from a bread-puff and munch on kibla greens and stewed shatual hunted on Concordia. And it’s normal.
For decades he didn’t have this. He’d forgotten what it was to share a meal. And now he can.
Luke’s voice is soft as it breaks through his reverie. He looks concerned. Din shakes his head and offers a small smile.
“Just feeling very lucky,” he says, hooking a forkful of Dacho noodles.
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