Super duper belated doodle for Fixer Day, I like his stylish green diaper cod piece

Another win is that you're tasked with hunting today. The woods surrounding the compound is your arena—you had explored nearly the entirety of it in the first week here, breathing the air of the forest and the life in it. You've come from a world where your people worship forest spirits and you haven't quite forgone your beliefs. You're an excellent hunter and tracker, and that's another point in Vau's eyes.

Lord Mirdalan throws you hard glances, its golden head snarling back and forth between the buck ahead and yourself. If its teeth-baring and impatience glinting in its beady dark eyes tell you anything, it's a one word away from dashing forward in a blur, baring elongated teeth wider—deadlier, with the intent to incapacitate its game.

Your game.

“Alright alright,” you muse, gripping your bow in your hand and easing an arrow in. “I'm the one hunting, Mird’ika. I call the shots.”

The golden strill grumbles. Every blink and widening of its eyes can only indicate its mounting anxiety that their prey would run away any moment. And to be honest, yeah. Vau’s glare of disappointment flashes through your mind—he trusts you with his oldest friend—and you decide you're not going through one of those, or Sev’s bullying afterward. That man's quips are insufferable. He definitely got those from his buir.

“Yes it's your hunt too,” you whisper, as if you can read what's going through Mird’s mind. The strill lowers impossibly close to the ground upon your encouragement, ready to pounce at any given time.

Your game still fails to notice your and Mird's presence. A sparse group of ferns in front of you and hunting attire camouflage you well. Breathing in, you draw your arrow back, the coarse fletching brushes just shyly against your cheek, the sharp point zeroing in on your unsuspecting game a distance away from you. Broadside. Lungs. Heart.

Breathe out, and…

Fwt—THUCK! 

Your arrow embeds deep on its broadside—the lungs. The buck jolts, its short antlers and hooves rearing into the air before dropping onto the forest soil—dead, from what you could tell. Hopping over your cover, you go to inspect your game, poking its eyelids with your bow. No flinch. Its beady eyes dull, void of life. Killed. Becoming clan food. Maybe tonight's dinner while it's fresh. Brushing a hand across its hide, you utter a small prayer of gratitude before working to collect your killing arrow.

Baring teeth next to you, Mird throws its impeachment in a long growl as if insulting you for not calling Oya! and letting it have its way with the buck. A big bite to the neck would've been nice instead of a fatal shot! Or at least that's what it thinks. You shake your head.

“It's ethical, Mird. Quick death.” You could never. Leaving an animal to die a slow painful death at your hands is an unforgivable sin in your belief system. The least you could do to atone is a slash of your hunting dagger as soon as possible. “Not gonna be sorry about that. But sorry I topped you, though.”

Mird slaps a golden paw at your boot, its gaze still hardened, demanding for retribution.

“Fine,” you chuckle fondly, dragging a hand through its golden hide, “Let's find a couple of quails for you to snack on, then?”

You hesitate when reaching for your rope, having initially intended to tie your game by the feet and drag it all the way back home. You don't really give a damn about balding the unimpressive hide in the process—a small defeat of this hunt. Fleshing is therapeutic, but it'd take a hell lot of time to dry in the sun, something you wouldn't do in autumn’s cloudy situation.

Your options shift between that or comming one of the boys to heave it up and over their broad shoulders. Maybe there's salvation in some parts of the hide, or the skull. The antlers could be another addition to Sev's fine collection. Speaking of Sev, he can't abandon his watch post somewhere around you (you know exactly where he is), so you hold out your hope in the other three.

By your feet, Mirdalan snarls demandingly for your promised quails.

“Stand by, Mird,” you mutter, fishing your comm out of your pocket at last, “I'll comm Boss to carry this back and we'll find your quail.”

“Need some assistance with that?”

You jump at the voice, hand falling to your hunting dagger at your hip but as soon as you register it as an obscured voice filtered through a helmet, your coiled muscles relax. Your eyes flit past the autumnal umber and scarlet of the forest, easily clocking beskar approaching you in a little, if not, cautious manner.

“Fixer.”

Mird circles around his legs in greeting with its tongue out and lolling. Oh it's definitely happy, and oblivious. Fixer is one of its favorites, as far as you know. The former commando nods once in greeting at you, the T-visor of his Mando helmet shifting between you and the dead buck. “Impressive game.”

You nod in thanks, your gaze distant. Something inside you, your heart, clenches and you prefer not to dwell on it. Not now. “I'd like the help, if you don't mind.”

Fixer can hear his breath in his own helmet—can hear the disappointment vaporizing out of his body and clogging the top of his head. Hearing how you've chosen to be distant from him, putting an end to all your soft advances on him altogether—it puts him in the most uncomfortable position.

And he blames himself for that. Thinking how ridiculous and in disbelief that someone as admirable as you could find something endearing in someone like him. Him. His way to recovery after his buir and vode found him—after undergoing torture from the Empire—hadn't been smooth. There are cracks in his mind and gaps in his memory—he’s suffered. Pained. Unworthy. Broken.

But you're kind. You’re a good person. Wanting the best for everyone, wanting to help however you can after Boss found you in one of the systems in the Outer Rim escaping slavery. You're forever in their debt. You're strong. In a way, both of you are similar. Wal’buir is clearly fond of you, but somehow for Fixer it wasn't enough.

He doesn't deserve you.

“I don't mind,” he finally says, tapping the tips of his gloved fingers against his thigh plate in near nervousness. He observes the buck again, helmet tilting downward. “Heading home?”

You ignore the way your heart clenches again at the word home. You live under the same roof with them, and that's just it. It too reminds you of the pain—the way Fixer never acknowledged you with more than a slight tilt of his head when you strolled past. Never more than a blink and few words when you smiled up at him, your chest warming at, simply, the sight of him. How much of a survivor he was, every scar telling you a story of perseverance.

So yeah, if only your feelings are reciprocated. It hurt that it never became something more. Even Scorch's teasing as your unofficial wingman wasn't helping—Fixer always shut it down before he could give it a chance to bloom and probably spark something in him, and then Boss looked at you apologetically every time it happened. You hate it. It embarrassed you, moreso when Vau knew. You have zero idea what they're saying in their stern and scolding Mando'a conversations, and you're hurt and embarrassed enough to bet on a correct guess.

You sigh heavily as you shoulder your bow. “You go ahead. I'm getting quails for Mird.” Pivoting on your heels, you travel deep into the woods, Vau's six-legged strill already waltzing ahead. You pause, the weight in your chest heavy and cold when you barely look over your shoulder, the words next coming out of you sounding equally cold and distant. “Thanks, Fixer.”

The former commando stares at your retreating figure, fists clenched by his side without him realizing. A long exhale rattles his helmet's speakers. He relaxes his fists, shoulders wilting when you've completely disappeared from the subject identifier of his HUD.

“Didn't that go well.”

Sev's footfalls are heavy, fallen leaves crunch under his boots, and the barrel of his sniping blaster rifle lies on one red-painted shoulder bell. Fixer's chest tightens—Sev’s been watching. Of course. Probably from binocs, most likely perching so still on his post up top on a tree under half-assed ghillie suit.

“Shouldn’t you be on your post?”

“Boss' turn.” And his turn with the crops. Somewhere in their domestic life Boss has turned into a passionate farmer through and through—suppose it's the Vhett genes getting the best of him. Sev studies the game, precisely at the broadside wound, his buy'ce bobbing ever so slightly in approval. You and Sev along with Vau share the love for game hunting. He looks up at Fixer, slinging the rifle across his body, and squats. “Go after them. I volunteer.”

Panic rises in him. He's not ready. He's not ready for another cold shoulder from you. “I'll let them be for now—”

“No you won't, di’kut. Can't stand the tension back at the yaim. You'll finish this,” Sev jabs a finger at him. “Meanwhile I'll tell Wal’buir where you’ve gone.”

“You won't.”

“Thin ice, Fix’ika.” Sev nods his buy’ce at the direction where you've gone. “Do something about it. You're here to mend it.”

It's not even a question followed by an aren't you? directed at him—it’s a statement. Encouragement. Or Sev's version of encouragement. Baffled by his own initial intentions that he's completely forgotten and the thunderstorm of conflicts brewing inside of him, words are caught in his throat. Fixer says nothing in return, and he can feel an eyebrow lift from his vod.

Sev snorts, lifting the buck over his shoulders with ease. “Sounds like I'm right this time.”

Then he's alone.

Nothing but the sound of nature around him, and his own thoughts.

Nothing but moving forward. So, he does. The forest blurs around him as he nearly absently follows your trail.

The opportunity has been presented, the chance given. Well, by Sev. More like a push rather than a generous chance, really. You didn't look like you're giving him a chance. You gave him a lot, but he brushed you off every single time.

Wasted.

Fixer can almost hear the threat coming from Sev, something like watch me being a sheb’spalon for an entire week if you both aren't coming out of the treeline smiling and looking lovesick with each other that'd make Wal’buir gag. Exaggerated threats, but might happen. Sev doesn't back down from his threats. That man had chosen the glaring red color for his commando armor for a reason.

After his rescue, once a former medic trainee, you came to him in the compound's infirmary every rotation, never missing one. Helping to check his vitals with Boss' help, always talking so softly because sounds annoyed his broken mind and broken body at the time, always making sure he had some calories in him. You took care of him. Scorch had teased you about being his private nurse, but you let out this deep belly laughter and said you'd rather be a hunting nomad instead, and that was the day you began to tell stories of your homeworld to comfort him. Or at least, what you could remember of its beauty. You escaped slavery in the Outer Rim. You were scarred. Just like him.

That also was the day he began to feel something. Something foreign. Something that made a connection between you and himself. Something that made him think about you when you weren't in the room with him. Something that made him long for you.

After he got back on his feet, you too helped him adjust with his new life, together with his vode, away from the Empire. You started going a little easier around him, no longer treating him like a fine fragile vase but just like any other of his brothers. You treat all of them equally, and you respect Vau. That's enough for him. So much value already. That should be enough for him to trust you fully now that he's got ahold of his mind and body. Right?

Yeah. But then you were doing that again. Speaking to him a little softer, gentler, than with the others. Your eyes gleaming when you smiled at him, somehow finding himself in your company. He knew what was going on. Not that it wasn't pleasant. He just doesn't deserve you. Didn't.

“Kandosii, Mird’ika!”

Your faint voice makes him stop in his trek. That's you. You sound happy. You belong. You love nature. It's a part of your belief. You value life—human life. He heard you sneaking into the infirmary late at night. Adjusting his pillows, tucking him in, patting his hand in reassurance, whispering get well soon’s that didn't sound empty, uttering a small prayer to your deities for his health in your native tongue.

Something about it is… private. Intimate, even. Important. Is he? Important? Significant? Like the amount of encrypted data he had sliced and obtained in the past?

Special. You deemed him special. Emphasis on deemed. Conflicts swallowed him so much that he turned a blind eye on you. Fixer wishes he could've had his eyes on you when your first frown of realization rests on your brows. It was too late for him. Maybe it could've been different. Maybe he could've mended it—changed himself and talked about it at last.

Why did he come here? He came for you. He's supposed to be at the workshop right now, but he raced against time and finished ahead of schedule once he heard his chance—you, alone, doing your errands. Might be a perfect time, maybe not. Because you've been avoiding him too. Gone has the glimmer in your eyes. Enter the cold shoulder and fake enthusiasm. You’re still being nice and polite as usual, but that's your baseline. There's no longer… closeness. That bond. The bond that you have built. You alone. He wasn't even trying. He wasn't present.

It is, perhaps the first time in years, the time he curses himself at a loss. Such a loss.

Yet unbeknownst to him, it's hurting you too. How does it feel trying to be, at the very least, nice for someone you once had a crush on? Drowned in shame for believing someone like Fixer could've reciprocated your feelings. You believed in him. He sounded amazing from what his brothers told you. Talented. Thorough. Appreciative. Careful. Methodical. Maybe you pushed your luck too far. He needed healing. Much longer, much more, more time. You know how it felt to be a tortured soul. You were one, anyway. So you stepped away. It was stupid. You were doing the right thing.

Crossing the stream, Mirdalan is obviously resisting to chomp deeper into the two quails you just shot as it brought them back to you. You insisted, with a little silly argument with the strill. The least you can do is plucking the feathers before Mird can enjoy its snack of pure meat and bones and no feathers.

With the birds still warm, it's quite easy. Mird takes time to devour them. After rinsing your hands with the current of the stream, you take your time to rest for a while, making a particular smooth rock your seat as you gaze out into the trees, which now mostly are barren of leaves. Autumn usually calms your mind—you love autumn—but now it's occupied with Fixer's situation.

The rustling of the thicket behind you prompts you to grab your bow and nock an arrow in less than two seconds. Fixer reveals himself, his hands free of the blaster strapped to his thigh and are raised meaning you no harm. No harm alright, but seeing him… hurts still. Your heart has been racing in your chest and shows no sign of calming down, but you try your best to collect yourself.

“Don't sneak up on me when I've got these with me,” you remind him, stashing your bow and arrow away. Mird seems undisturbed, its loud chewing filling what seems to be a bubble between the three of you. “You could've been mistaken for a beast. And shot.”

Fixer tilts his head. “You know this forest, though. Heard from Scorch you explored the entirety of it in a week.”

“Nearly,” you correct him.

He watches you. “Well. Are there any beasts?”

You put a relief in your tense muscles. “Not that I've encountered.” Shaking your head, you're unable to help the brief little smirk on your lips. “Not that I want to anyway.”

He catches that. The smallest lift of the corner of your lips. But your eyes look as they've always been for the past time—mirthless, in which the smile doesn't quite reach your eyes, and filled with void smugness.

Fixer warily brings himself closer, his hands falling to his side. You watch his movement, willing yourself to just calm down and maybe not throwing a punch across his face. Or helmet. That's made of beskar. Yeah, no.

You clench and unclench your bare fists, leaning your backside against the rock in another attempt to make yourself (appear) relaxed. His broad commando stature approaches you carefully, settling just a few feet away. The tip of his boots graze the grass that adorns the side of the stream, T-visor methodically sweeping the area—either to take in the view, or scanning for any hostiles out of habit.

Finding nothing to look at, you watch Mird instead. One quail gone, the other now gnawed between its maw.

“I've hurt you.”

Your attention turns to Fixer. You wish you could tell the storm of emotions that's brewing under his helmet—just a little glimpse that would've allowed you to feel a little bit more smug.

“You have,” you say.

Fixer manages not to recoil when you cross your arms. Not a good sign. Was that a horrible way to start at all? He just spat out what's been running around his mind. He's hurt you. He's hurt you. He's hurt you. A man of few words nowhere near Scorch, he wishes you can just understand. But he has to talk. Conveying his… feelings. You have no idea what's going through his mind and he doesn't want to be stuck in this hellhole forever—all he wants now is to see you looking at him again with the kind of joy that he knows—so he needs to talk.

“I understand if my actions have implied distaste toward you,” he starts, tension creeping up his shoulders. “I understand too that you're angry. You have every right to, because I was… I was being an asshole.” Great, now he's using Sev's words. “You’re hurt, and I didn't mean that. Never meant to.”

You swallow. This is the day you'd hope to come—although a moment too late. “But why did you?”

The question is confrontational, a little wavering if he trusts his audio receptors, but he can still hear the hurt in your voice, demanding for answers.

“I didn't know what to do about it. I was confused,” Fixer confesses. He stares down at his hands. “I was still recovering and you just showed so much kindness. You didn't even know me, but you cared.”

You open your mouth to intervene but he continues.

“You oversaw me. Took care of me. It was too much, I couldn't… I can't act otherwise but telling you how grateful I am. I never meant to push you away. I never meant to ignore you.” These are all messy, flurry of thoughts that he’d just spill, as if written down in points and he's stuck to explaining with it, no longer calculating and methodical with his approach. This is a foreign territory for him, you realize, and this is a show of weakness in the shape of dilemma. “I wanted to welcome you. I just didn't know how,” Fixer tries, his voice grows softer, “I'm… scared. If I misstep and everything comes crashing down.”

He offers his hope high up into the sky. He wants you to teach him how. He hopes you're there to navigate his path while holding his hand and because, Manda, he wants to know how that feels too, again, with something more etched deep in your hearts—not just to comfort him and ease his pain as a friend, no.

As something more.

“I don't think I could handle it. If I lose you.” He's mistepped. He's made everything crashing down on him. The weight of the guilt is not as heavy as beskar on his body. “But I already did, didn't I?”

Your next breath of air into your lungs is sharp, through the teeth, as you take in his confession. A revelation—a light, a beacon of hope in your soul reignited. Though you're unable to see him, empathy engulfs your judgement swifter than your arrow. His words, spilled out, as if he's already defeated, and as if whatever remains of your tattered bond that hadn't broken and vanished yet, you never want to hear him pained like this again.

Softly, you take a deep breath. “You didn't lose me.” Your exhale comes a little unstable. “It was just difficult to look at you, Fixer. I thought you didn't want any of this.”

“I couldn't be certain,” says his strained voice. Raising his hand, he taps the side of his helmet. “There was a lot to process back then.”

“I know,” you sigh, an apology for your impatience and enthusiasm back then is already on the tip of your tongue.

“You are so kind. You didn't even know me,” Fixer stresses, again, his T-visor staring blankly into you. But his cadence doesn't lie. He takes one step closer to you. You don't flinch. Then one more. And one more. Until he's only a couple feet away from you. His confidence burns bright and he can feel it—you can feel it. “Why?”

“You’re one of them. You know my history, if not most of it, and I owe your aliit so much,” you explain with confidence, “I was my village's medic trainee. You need all the help you can get to full recovery, either physically or mental.”

“And by falling in love with me too?”

If anything, his tone is no longer confrontational but amused. The weight on his shoulders slowly but surely lifts, and a puff of airy laughter escapes his lips when you sigh, almost exasperatedly and caught off guard by his harmless question, and darker colors begin to envelop your cheeks.

“You know that these things happen… sometimes naturally,” you try to reason despite flushed to bashfulness, throwing your gaze away from his scrutiny. Fixer raises both eyebrows. Somehow you must know what expression he's making under the helmet, he thinks, because you're looking at him again.

With nothing but Mird's low growls and the trickling stream as the sounds enveloping your bubble, his focus zeroes in to how the cool sun makes your skin and hair glow. He can almost see your beauty blending with nature itself, catching just how much your love toward it is reflected. Your big heart, your ceaseless care toward life. You're a gem, rare to the world, moreover in what the world has become now.

And you're choosing him, out of all people. Not even his own brothers. Him.

You breathe in your confidence again, fully believing that he is here, now, for you. The distance between the two of you is a slight lean away to be completely closed, and your chest thrums at the prospect. And so you take Fixer’s hand with both of yours, his balled fist falling apart upon your touch and his glove warming your cool hand.

“Naturally, hm?” he muses.

You grin. “You have manuals to go through first before seeing where this is gonna go?”

His helmet sways a little as if he's rolling his eyes. “I don't need a manual to navigate through this.”

Before another quip escapes you, Fixer grabs both your shoulders and leans his buy’ce against your forehead. Your eyes widen at the unexpected notion, and you're certain he can see, through his visor, your whirlwind of emotions flashing in your eyes—and really, so he does. You have no idea how fluttery his chest is, how wide his smile is, and how relieved he is somehow—he can't explain it—but there they all are.

You want to kiss him, and oh how badly you want to kiss him. But you can't just ask him to take his helmet off. He probably doesn't want to anyway—that's why he initiated the lingering kov’nyn, right? This will suffice for now. Having Fixer finally close to you—with you—the heat of his body and the material of his flight suit pressing into you… it’s more than enough.

“Fixer…” you murmur, your lungs feeling so heavy and light at the same time that you're about to float.

“Cyar’ika,” he returns, “Is this… okay?”

Despite your blush at the boldly said pet name, you hold in a snort, staring deep into his visor, hoping to meet his eyes behind as best as you can. “You said you didn't need any manuals.”

A pause. You're about two seconds too late to realize why he's reaching up to the edge of his helmet and before you know it, he's taking it off.

Fixer is handsome. His unruly curls are kissing his skin just above his eyebrows, and he smells like aftershave. White-lined scars from his time under the Empire's unforgiving hold on him litter across his face, the soft lines on his face and the amber in his eyes always seem to carry such a weight. Such a pain. Nevertheless his will to live and see his brothers again was stronger than his will to die in an Imperial hellhole. Either his clone programming or Vau’s teachings—Fixer’s strength to endure, will to heal, and overall steadfastness is obvious. 

And so with such unsaid adoration, you close the distance between you by grabbing his face and pressing your lips against his—his helmet drops to the forest floor with a thud. Gently at first as you realize you've rendered him frozen, but Fixer winds both hands around you to pull you impossibly closer before returning the gesture with a sigh.

He feels and tastes like everything you could've ever imagined about him. He's careful as he kisses you, his lips dry but not cracked and becoming moistened as you attempt to quench your passionate hunger.

Your mind is fully awake as you tread carefully, following his level of comfort, running your fingers up and down softly along his cheek. Sparks continuously burst inside you as he moves his mouth against yours with vigor, as if something inside him bursts open, opening in the slightest bit in an attempt to discover how he'd like the softness of your bottom lip. A quiet, breathless noise escapes you, and just then your longtime crush pulls away, both of you gasping for air—each other's air again, eventually—the sparks in both of your eyes are now shining brighter.

“That was…” he trails off, speechless.

“Incredible,” you breathe, your wide pleased grin invites his own. The handsome sight tugs you to refrain yourself from kissing him senseless again right there and then.

“Mm,” he hums in agreement.

You tease him, “Not bad for someone who hadn’t got the time to go through the manuals.”

Chuckling, Fixer goes to gently cup the sides of your face, laying a peck to your lips that would definitely swell had he continued but he doesn't, before smiling at you. A painfully soft, sincere smile. You watch on, as you commit the lovely view to memory, as he says, “Thank you.”

“What for?” you frown, amused. “The kiss? You know you don't need to. We wanted that, and we still do.”

“Yeah, but not only that.” Fixer looks at you lovingly. “For everything.”

divider by me!

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