#lithdraug

"My original task was to bring Grogu to his people," Din said, after sitting back by the fire and recounting his journeys since the massacre on Nevarro. They'd never had a chance to talk about it on Glavis; Paz had been too bitter to try. "I knew that I couldn't keep him. It was...easier, to remain unattached."

Paz looked down at the child. Grogu was leaning against apparently-not-his-father's thigh, cooing contentedly, little hands still wrapped around the now empty cup. Din's hand rested atop his head in a seemingly unconscious gesture, thumb absently smoothing down one ridiculously long ear.

Paz was pretty sure Din became attached to that kid within less than an hour of meeting him.

"You are no longer unattached," he pointed out, "And the Jedi are no longer his people. We are."

Din inhaled a sharp breath, stilling. 

Had he truly not considered that?

Paz studied him for a few more moments, taking in his protective posture, his hunched shoulders. The way he occasionally looked down at Grogu like he still wasn't sure why the kid was there; like he thought that at any moment, the child might change his mind and leave.

Ah. 

This, Paz understood.

"You think you would make a bad father," he concluded.

Din tensed, but didn't reply. Paz tilted his head in understanding.

After all, he knew the feeling.

Paz leaned back against the wall, tapping his fingers idly against one of his cuisses. A slow beat, calming: one of the old remembrance songs turned into a simple rhythm.

"We," he said, "Are not kind men."

Din did not object. Paz didn't expect him to.

"You have hunted bounties with no thought given to if they deserve it. I have killed beings whose only crime was wandering too near the covert. We chose to follow a Creed that put our people over all else. This is the Way."

"This is the Way," Din murmured. The words sounded flat on his tongue, hesitant, as if wondering if he had the right to speak them.

"We chose to be Mandalorian. And every day, Ragnar continues to choose to be my child. Every day, I am humbled by his choice. No matter what I think of myself or who I may be, he is the one who decided that I am a father worthy of him."

"Grogu is too young to choose," Din said flatly. 

Paz snorted. 

"To swear the Creed, maybe. But if he could choose between staying with the Jedi or being with you, he can choose to become your son. It sounds like he already has."

"He doesn't have to be," Din argued. "We are all raised together; he could be part of the covert without tying himself to me. I don't need to be his father."

Din had a very punchable face. Paz forgot that, sometimes. But he'd already taken off his gloves, and he wasn't in the mood to break his knuckles against that empty beskar skull.

The two of them tended to solve most of their disagreements with their fists: they were, after all, Mandalorian, and shouting matches were harder with broken ribs. It had been that way since they were children, squabbling over who got the last slice of uj'alayi, or who did better in training. The fights got longer and more bitter as they got older, but there was always a sense of catharsis afterward, no matter who won.

It was, frankly, better than the alternative.

Paz studied his vod, his friend, and remembered a shellshocked young face beneath a mop of brown curls. He remembered a quiet boy learning the Way and never once questioning his place in the covert--even when perhaps he should have.

"I never thought," Paz said slowly, deliberately, "That you would be so cruel to deny a child a Clan, as you were."

He'd heard Din make less agonized sounds from being stabbed. 

"No," Din choked out. His grip tightened on Grogu, enough to make the little one squeak in concern. "No, that's not what-- I would never--"

"You treat him as your own," Paz continued ruthlessly. "You have fought and bled for him, cared for him when no one else did. You broke the Creed to put his safety above all else. Are those not the actions of a parent?"

"But--"

Paz stood, frustration and real fury caught behind his teeth as he glared down at his stupid, ignorant almost-brother.

Din always knew best how to make him angry.

"He left safety with the Jedi and crossed the galaxy to return to you, and you would sit here and deny him a place at your side?" he demanded. "Would you have him also follow after you on his knees, hoping for a family that he will never be granted?"

"Paz--"

Paz wouldn't do this again. He wouldn't stand by and watch as another child was crushed by disappointment, strung along with promises of belonging to a Clan: pushing themselves to their limits to prove their worthiness, only to fail, because there was never the possibility of winning in the first place. Because love couldn't--shouldn't--be earned, and family wasn't something that should be used as a reward.

He wouldn't allow it. Not now, not when he actually had the ability to prevent it, now that he wasn't a fucking coward--

"Maybe," Paz snarled, "You really should have been a Vizsla."

Din's fist collided with his face. 

He hadn't removed his gloves.

Copper blossomed across Paz's tongue as his head snapped to the side. He immediately retaliated, kicking Din savagely in the gut just below his beskar. Din stumbled back with a gasping wheeze, and while Paz didn't delude himself about his normal chances against him--Din won their bouts seventy percent of the time--he, unlike apparently Din himself, was aware that one of them was still injured.

Grogu scurried over to Din, who was doubled over in pain. The child fixed Paz with what was unmistakably a glare, one tiny green hand resting on the top of Din's boot.

The accusatory expression on such a young face chased the rage from Paz's throat. He sighed, shoulders slumping, fists loosening into open hands.

He really did prefer fights where they could just hit each other. Those always hurt less.

"He'll be fine, little one," Paz rumbled, sitting with his back to the wall in view of the entrance, Din laying next to him. The foundling cooed unhappily and tucked his head against his father's neck; as soon as Paz had placed him there, Din had curled around the child, protective even in sleep.

"Patoo."

"I've seen him get through worse than this," Paz replied mildly, "And I'm guessing you have, too."

"...leh."

"That's what I thought."

Most of Paz's supplies were topside with his ship, but he did keep emergency rations on him at all times - even if the emergencies tended to just be 'a foundling is hungry'. He set aside one of the ration bars for Din; for the child, he mixed some of his canteen water and a packet of nutrient paste together in the cup from his field kit, setting it near the edge of the fire to warm. 

He didn't actually know what the kid ate - or even what species he was - but going with something hard to choke on was generally a safe bet with babies.

Din started waking up by the time the broth was finished; Paz tested the temperature with an un-gloved finger before handing it to the little one. He reached over to place his hand flat on Din's chest at the sound of a muffled groan.

"Easy," he said. "You're safe."

"Wha-- Paz?"

"Your child is also safe," he added, as if said foundling wasn't slurping noisily right next to Din's head. 

"Grogu..?"

Aha, finally, a name for the kid. It sounded familiar, so Din had probably said it at some point before, but Din said lots of things that Paz tended to ignore.

Din tilted his helmet toward him.

"Paz?"

Paz frowned.

"Do you have a concussion?"

"...no?"

Reassuring.

Din struggled against the hand on his chest, and Paz reluctantly helped him sit up. He dropped the canteen and a ration bar in Din's lap and shuffled around so they were back-to-back, Din propped against him in a heavy weight that Paz didn't mind bearing. 

"Drink something. And eat, if you can stomach it. You need to replace whatever that thing took out of you."

Mostly blood, from what Paz could tell, but he admittedly didn't look too closely.

Din grunted in assent; Paz heard the cap of his canteen unscrew, and the soft hiss of a helmet seal disengaging. He kept his gaze straight ahead, idly scanning the room. 

"Found your kid topside," he said. "He led me down here to you. Smart little thing."

"He is," Din agreed softly. His voice sounded even worse without the vocoder modulating it, rough and tired and strained: vulnerable, in a way that their armor was designed to conceal. 

Paz stood guard while Din ate, a hand on the assault cannon at his side, his body blocking the view from the entryway. But the sewers stayed calm, just the crackling of the fire and the child's happy coos interrupting the companionable quiet. He waited until he heard Din pull his helmet back on, and the soft sizzle of a wrapper being disposed of in the fire.

Then he waited some more.

"Paz," Din said, eventually, "What are you doing here?"

"Saving your sorry ass, obviously."

Din snorted, uncontrolled and undignified, and thunked his helmet ungently against the back of Paz's. 

"Paz."

Paz sighed, tapping his fingers one-two-three against the barrels of his cannon. 

"The foulding you saved," he said. "The one who was swearing the Creed."

Din hummed in inquiry.

"He is mine."

"Oh," Din breathed. "Oh, Paz, that's wonderful. Congratulations."

Paz grinned widely beneath his helmet, ducking his head a little. The fierce pride he felt whenever he looked at Ragnar, when he remembered that he'd been gifted with a child of his own to cherish - it still surprised him, sometimes, the depth of the emotion. He'd always loved the foundlings in their covert, would have happily died to protect them - but something about having Ragnar as his son made him want to live. 

"I came in second, as usual," he groused good-naturedly. "You'd already gone and found yourself a child first."

"Ah, that's...not quite correct."

Paz blinked. 

"What?"

"I mean I haven't, yet," Din said. "He's not mine, not really. I haven't sworn the words to him."

Paz blinked again.

Then he twisted around to stare incredulously at his utter idiot of a brother.

"You what?"