For every few clay sketches I do for “serious” art (lol, I am so unserious), I carve a little sketch for me. I give you, our beloved tin can man, painstakingly carved in porcelain.
Plus some process pics!
He’ll need to be fired in the kiln before I glaze and fire it one more time before he’s done. But I’m thinking about framing it and hanging it in my studio over my pottery wheel. 🥰
Ceramic taglist: @evolnoomym @rebel-held @burntheedges @katareyoudrilling @lotusbxtch (and @604to647 bc I you love Din too)
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✮ ── It had been months since you’ve seen Din Djarin. It had been months since you had said goodbye. Months since you felt his lips on yours. While training under Luke Skywalker you realized how much you truly missed him. pt 2 of don’t go.
The gentle winds of Ossus brushed over you, soft blades of grass tickling your arms and legs. Your new sabers, designed just for you, sat on your hip. Luke had personally seen to you receiving your new kyber crystals in the sacred caves of Ilum. Having two lightsabers was a challenge, surely, but you had grown used to them. In the distance, Grogu splashed in the creek, with an impatient Luke standing above him. You laughed. For the first time in what felt like forever, you laughed. It was peaceful here. Perhaps one of the most peaceful places you had ever been. You supposed you had Luke to thank for that, seeing as he was the one who brought you and Grogu both. You admired Luke. As the son of Anakin Skywalker, you expected nothing less but a strong young man. And a strong young man he had become, if not more. The two of you were close in age, with him being only a year your senior. He shared your sentiment on rebuilding the jedi order from scratch. A task that seemed down right impossible by yourself. But now, with Darth Vader and Sidious gone, it was right within reach.
It has been months since you’ve seen your Mandalorian. Months since you, for the first time, saw his face as he said goodbye to the only people he had. You could still remember his hands on your face, his beskar in your chest. You vividly remember the pain and the tears in his eyes as you caressed his face. He knew you had to leave with Luke. To help bring order to the galaxy once more after it was torn to pieces. Perhaps that’s what hurt him more. That it was absolutely necessary, and there was no stopping it. There was no coming with you.
You could still occasionally feel him on days like this. On days where you were one with the force. You could feel his heart beating even though you were planets away. Luke had warned you of this when you first told him.
“You must let him go. If you see him, it may be detrimental to your training and your progress.” But Luke was understanding. He understood how it felt to lose a loved one. He knew how it felt to have to leave them. That was why he was patient. Giving you these moments alone to think. You and the Mandalorian were bonded. He knew this. So he knew that it would take more than words to ease your mind.
Luke trained you rigorously, pushing you beyond your limits. You trained tirelessly from sunrise to sundown, sparing only brief moments for meals. Even during your downtime, you dedicated yourself to meditation. With Luke by your side, you’ve made remarkable progress. He himself was a qualified master, having trained under the legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi himself. His exceptional talent and lineage as the son of the Chosen One further enhance his abilities. Just a month ago, he bestowed upon you the esteemed title of Jedi Master, recognizing your significant growth under his guidance. When he wasn’t training you, he oversaw Grogu’s. The child wasn’t quite ready to wield a saber, so he worked on his connection to the force.
That’s what lead you to where you were. Basking in the sun of Ossus as you watched Luke tell Grogu to drop the frog from his mouth and focus. Just as you were about to return to meditating, you sensed it—a subtle shift in the Force. It was akin to the sensation you had felt when Luke had arrived on the X-Wing. A heartbeat resonated within you, not your own, and you knew with certainty that your Mandalorian had come for you. Luke would undoubtedly advise you against it, urging you to remember your training. However, the presence of the Mandalorian made it impossible for you to comply.
Abandoning your spot on the grass, you began your search. As you went deeper into the bamboo you could feel the tug of your heart, as if his own was pulling you. You were dedicating to seeing him again. Your body full of anxiety as you continued. The thoughts ran rampant in your mind. Would he be upset with you? You couldn’t blame him, seeing as you left on a whim. But a part of you knew he couldn’t be. He knew that being a Jedi meant a lot to you, just as being a Mandalorian meant a lot to him.
When you finally saw him, he was lying on a makeshift bed of bamboo. His arm rested on his chest, but you knew he was not sleeping. R2 waited at his side, body turned to the armored man. You could feel his anxiousness, even as he was lying completely still. For a moment you simply stood there. You took him in — all of him — from a distance. The feeling of seeing him again was overwhelming. You had come to terms that you may never see him again, but there he was. You had missed him so much, and there he was. Right there in front of you. Your Mandalorian. A stick snapped under your weight, and his gun was immediately pointed in your direction.
When Din arrived, he was frustrated by the absence of you or Grogu. The droids, engrossed in constructing a stone building, were oblivious to his presence and solely focused on their task. At least R2-D2 had attempted to assist, albeit unsuccessfully. All he yearned for was your presence. The past few months had been an excruciatingly lonely period for him. He had no one to accompany him on bounties, no one to disrupt the ship’s controls as he soared through the skies. No one to return home to.
So, when he spotted you in front of his blaster, he immediately shot up from the makeshift bed, lowering his weapon.
“Din…” You whispered, a small, sad etching itself onto your face.
The two of you stood there simply staring at each other for a while, before he suddenly sped forth and nearly crushed you in a hug. His beskar dug into your skin but you paid it no mind. It felt like the part of yourself you lost those months ago was finally returned as he held you. Your hearts slowed to beat in sync, finally together.
“I missed you so much.” You whimpered, your face in his flight suit.
“I couldn’t wait. I had to see you.” You could hear the edge on his modulated voice. All of the yearning he had carried a since the moment you left. When you pulled back from the hug, your hands met the hallowed cheeks of his helmet.
“The creed...” Din nearly broke down right there. Of course you would care about his religion, just as he had cared for yours.
“It’s alright, cyar’ika. I needed you to see.” Your brows furrowed.
“I could feel you,” Din said, his modulated voice lowering. “I could feel your heart.” At that you chuckled.
“The force is a wonderful thing.”
Your moment together was broken as someone cleared their throat behind you. Turning around, you saw Ahsoka standing on a rock, her arms crossed and leaning against a tree. You felt as if you had been caught stealing an extra batuu-ban after dinner.
“You…” Din started, his hand still on the small of your back. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I’m an old friend of the family.”
“I thought you weren’t going to help train them.”
“She’s not.” You said, removing your hands from his helmet. Ahsoka nodded before continuing for you.
“Master Luke is.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Ahsoka pushed herself from the tree, slowly walking over to the two of you.
“That’s my question for you.” Ahsoka smiled, reaching down to place her hand on R2’s metal head.
“I’m here to see them.”
“That’s why R2 brought you to me instead.” R2 chirped happily, shaking side to side. Ahsoka laughed.
“What is this place?” Din gestured in the direction of the droids still working on the building in the distance.
“It’s nothing now,” You said, your hand on Dins armored bicep. “But will someday be a great school.”
“They will be its first students.” Ahsokas arms crossed as the proud smile remained on her face.
“I’d like to know how he’s doing.”
“He’s doing fine.” you reassured. Din tilted his head down to you.
“I would like to see him.” R2 trilled lowly, like there was something wrong. You bit your lip as Ahsoka let out a sigh. Din looked between you both, sensing there was something you were not telling him.
“I know you do. Let us take a walk.” You squeezed his bicep before following after Ahsoka, feeling the Mandalorian close on your heel.
“I warned you when we met,” Ahsoka spoke as she walking through the bamboo. The dried leaves crunched under your weight. “Your attachment to Grogu would be difficult to let go.”
“He was a Mandalorian foundling in my care. I just want to make sure he’s safe.”
Ahsoka raised her hands, gesturing to the land around them as she tilted back to look at Din. “There is no place in the galaxy more safe than here with Luke.”
“I don’t understand why you’re alright with Skywalkers decision to train the kid, when you wouldn’t.” Ahsoka sighed.
“Because it was his choice. Just as it was hers.” Ahsoka nodded to you. “I don’t control the wants of others.”
“Then it’s my choice to see them.”
“Of course,” Ahsokas arms crossed behind her back as she turned to look into the distance. “If that is what you wish.”
Din turned his head, spotting both Luke and Grogu at the top of the hill that you were once on.
“Alright.” Din pressed forth, only to be stopped by Ahsoka.
“Are you doing this for Grogu? Or are you doing this for yourself?” Din paused, tilting his head down as he thought. He reached and pulled something from his belt, a tiny bag now in his gloved hands.
“I just…wanted to give him this.” Ahsoka placed her hand on her hip.
“Why? So he will remember you?”
“No,” Din spat. “As a Mandalorian foundling he should have this. It’s his right.” Ahsoka crossed her arms once more.
“A foundling,” She said, edge on her voice. “Perhaps he is a padawan now.” Din stared down at the tiny bag before looking at you. You remained behind him, silent.
“Well…either way, this armor will protect him.” He looked back up, observing Grogu and Luke who sat together. Ahsoka stepped forward.
“If you are set on it, then allow me to deliver it.”
“I came all this way…” The disappointment was evident on his voice. “He’s right there.” Ahsoka walked closer, placing a supporting hand on his back.
“Grogu misses you a great deal,” Her eyes turned to look at the child. “If he sees you, it will only make things more difficult for him. It is not the same for him as it is her. She was already one with the force when you met her.” Din lingered for a moment longer before extending the bag towards Ahsoka.
“Make sure they are protected.” Ahsoka accepted the bag with both hands.
“You may protect her yourself.” Your attention was drawn to her as your brows furrowed. She smiled, placing her hands in front of her hips.
“Luke said leaving would slow my progress?” You questioned, feeling Din tense up from his position beside you.
“You have been gifted with the title of Master. There is little knowledge that Luke can give you now.” Ahsoka stood before you, her eyes locked onto yours. Din was speechless. You could leave with him. After all this time, he would finally have you.
“Grogu is not yet ready. You are.” You craned your head to look at Grogu perched atop the hill. He skillfully balanced rocks with the force, huffing in frustration when they didn’t conform to his expectations. The thought of leaving him, unable to guarantee his safety, tugged at your heartstrings. Yet, you had faith in Luke’s ability to protect the child, just as he had cared for you. Din’s hand found itself on the small of your back once more, and you found yourself smiling.
“Tell him I said thank you.” The woman in front of you bowed, observing as you and the Mandalorian returned to the ship. She chuckled softly. Ahsoka, a firm believer in the force, understood that it had woven a bond between you two.
“May the force be with you.”
It wasn’t until you and Din had returned to the ship that he finally spoke. He halted a few steps away, fixated on you as you tossed a few of your belongings into the cockpit. Upon noticing his lingering, you promptly jumped down onto the ground.
“What is it?” As you reached out to take his hand, your voice was filled with concern.
“While you were gone, I… I was miserable.” He spoke with a tinge of sadness. “It reminded me of a time where I had no one. Only, I knew I had you. I just couldn’t reach you.”
“You have me now.” You reassured, placing his gloved hand on your heart. “You will always have me.” He removed his hand from your grasp and you feared you had upset him, only to watch as he pressed the button on his helmet. It detached with a hiss, his brown curls messy as he pulled it off. There you saw his face. Completely different from the face you had seen for the first time.
There were no tears in his eyes. No furrowed and sad brows. Only the face of a man who had missed you with every fiber of his being. He was beautiful. You opened your mouth to speak, worried about his creed, only for him to stop you.
“I am an apostate. You can see me, all of me, whenever you want now.” The helmet fell to the ground with a clunk as he took your face into his hands.
“You were all I could think about. Your face was the first thing I saw when I woke up, and the last thing I saw before I fell asleep. You don’t know how many times I wanted to fly here and take you kicking and screaming.” He thought you would roll your eyes at his words. Only, you didn’t. Your hands wrapped onto his arms as you leaned up towards him.
“I would have went with you willingly.” The two of you laughed together, your foreheads meeting as you leaned into one another.
“Never leave me again.” He begged. And how could you deny him?
“Never.”
When Dins lips met your own, you could feel your hearts intertwine. They slid together like perfectly fitting puzzle pieces, and a hum of energy coursed through your bodies, as if they recognized the reunion of your souls.
✮ ── Din never truly comprehended the notion that one day, the two of you would part ways. One day, you would utter the words goodbye, and you would never cross paths again. He never imagined that day would arrive, so he felt no compulsion to think about it. That was until Luke Skywalker arrived in his X-Wing.
You felt it before you saw it. A subtle shift in the force. A comforting feeling, like a warm hand on your shoulder. You had felt this feeling before, back when you saw Ahsoka.
“An X-Wing.” The alarms of the ship rang out as it flew by.
Cara scoffed, readying her gun and pointing it at the door where the dark troopers threatened to burst in at any moment. “One X-Wing?” she exclaimed. “Great. We’re saved.”
Bo Katan rushed to the comms, ordering the incoming craft to identify themselves. You watched on the camera as the ship entered the landing bay, radio silence on the other end. A tingle shot through your spine. From where he sat on his chair, Grogu cooed at you. He felt it too. As Bo Katan switched through the different cameras, you watched as the hooded figure moved throughout the halls. You watched as he ignited his lightsaber, taking down droid after droid with ease.
“A jedi…” You murmured. Dins helmet shot your way, his blaster still raised towards the door. The Jedi inched his way closer, slicing through droids as if they were nothing. Grogus tiny green hand reached up to press on the screen before he slowly turned to look up at you. One of us, you heard in his mind. One of us.
From where he stood, Din looked at the two of you. He watched as you both stared at the camera, focused on one of your kind as they made their way to you. His jaw clenched under his helmet. This Jedi was here for you. For Grogu. For his family. The only two people he truly had left. It was at that moment — as you and Grogu remained glued to the screen — did he truly realize that his greatest fear was here.
The banging from outside the door ceased as the dark troopers turned to face the elevator, which ascended steadily. Upon its opening, the Jedi sprang into action, deflecting the blaster fire with his saber and swiftly eliminating each trooper in turn. You could sense the force intensifying within you. The energy surged through your veins, accompanied by the crackling of your own broken saber at your hip. The man responsible for your damaged saber sat on the ground, a look of terror etched onto his face.
The Jedi stood patiently at the closed door, the last droid still zapping with electricity as it shut off. You turned to look at Din as he picked Grogu up from where he sat on the chair. When his visor met your eyes, he could see the inner turmoil that was written on your face. You had not seen another Jedi since Ahsoka back on Corvus. He could only imagine how this must feel for you. One of your kind was here. For once in a very long time, you were not alone. He felt the same when he found more fellow Mandalorians. The same Mandalorians that now stood around you, waiting. You nodded your head.
“Open the doors.” Din commanded. Bo Katan remained where she was, simply staring at him. You could not blame her. Dins modulated voice grew heavier.
“I said, open the doors.”
“Are you crazy?” Fennec pressed, not tearing away her attention from where it was locked onto the door. Din ignored her, placing Grogu down in another chair that was turned away. You slowly made your way to the door, standing in front of it. Your hand was angled slightly upwards, ready to use the force if necessary. Din gave you one last look before pressing the button.
The dented metal doors opened with a creak. The green hue of the Jedis lightsaber quickly filled the room, its humming nearly soothing you. The Jedi took slow steps inside, before deactivating his saber and clipping it onto his belt. Only, you were taken aback by who the Jedi truly was.
Luke Skywalker stood in front of you with his hands clasped at his waist, his hood now on his shoulders. Luke took a look at the people around the room, then his gaze settled onto you.
“It’s been a while since i’ve last seen you.” He said, a small smile etched onto his face.
“It’s good to see you too, Luke.” Grogu peeked from behind the chair, cooing slightly.
“Are you…a Jedi?” Din asked, hesitation lingering in his voice. Luke nodded.
“I am.” When he spotted the tiny black eyes peering up at him, Luke extended his hand.
“Come little one.” Grogu stared up at Din, then you. You nodded. Din, not understanding, tilted his helmet.
“He doesn’t want to go with you.”
“He wants your permission, Din.” Your voice was soft with a slight hint of push. Your face read that it was okay. Luke bowed his head.
“He is strong with the force. But talent without training is nothing.”
“I will give my live to protect the child. And her.” At that, Dins head snapped your way. Your brows were already furrowed, as if you knew it was coming. The second the X-Wing entered the radar you knew. You knew that you would have to leave him behind. And you were prepared for it. That’s what hurt him the most.
“But they will not be safe they master their abilities.” Din never stopped looking at you. You could feel the heartbreak coming from him, as well as betrayal somewhere deep within. Only a few moments later did he turn to grab Grogu. The tiny child he had watched over for months. The tiny child whom he had grew to love. And now it was slipping through his fingers, as were you.
He stared down at Grogu in his arms. “Okay, go on. That’s who you belong with he’s one of your kind. I’ll see you again. I promise.” Grogus tiny green hand reached up to touch the beskar, resting it on the hallow cheek.
A modulated hiss echoed through the room as Din removed his helmet. Your mouth hung open, your brows furrowed in worry. He had broken the creed, in front of other Mandalorians, no less. He had broken it for Grogu. He had broken it for you. You watched as he slid the helmet off of his head, bringing it to his side. It was the first time you had ever seen Din Djarins face. You wish you could’ve seen it at a different time. A time where there wasn’t tears on his waterline, where his face wasn’t scrunched as Grogu touched his cheek like he did the helmet.
“Alright pal. It’s time to go.” Grogu made a sound at that, his own forehead wrinkling with what looked like the same worry you held. “Don’t be afraid.”
Din slowly placed Grogu on the ground before rising up to face you. You could feel tears of your own blurring your vision. Your breath was uneven as you tried to keep them down. You failed the second he stepped closer.
“I wish you didn’t have to go.” He whispered as he stood with his armored chest pressed against yours.
His gloved thumb caught a stray tear as it rolled down your face. You gripped onto the arm that was holding you as you leaned into his touch.
“I know.” You sniffled, nodding your head against his hand. “But I need to do this. For you. I’m no good to you with a broken saber.” A small laugh came with your words, and a small smile graced his face. You were right. You had never received proper Jedi training from a master. Being self taught could only get you so far.
“You will always, be good to me.” With that, his lips pressed against your own, not caring about anyone else in the room. The kiss wasn’t rough, it wasn’t fast, it was slow and hesitant. Full of something that you would call love. After you pulled away for air, your forehead rested against his. You could feel his heartbeat through the force as it connected you. Luke remained at the door, now holding Grogu in his arms as he waited patiently for you to say goodbye.
“Thank you,” Din muttered. “For everything.” You smiled.
“May the force be with you.” When you pulled away, you gave a slight nod towards Luke, who nodded in return.
Din watched as the two people he had come to love walked down the hall. Din watched as the only two people he had left slowly slipped from his grasp. He stood there, alone, the door having long closed. Bo Katan placed a gentle hand on his armored shoulder, yet he paid it no mind.
“You understand that the Jedi can have no attachments,” Luke started as the two of you grew closer to his ship. “You may never see him again.”
“I know.”
As you left with Luke Skywalker and the child, you could still feel Din from within the ship. You could feel his heart reaching out for yours, slowly fading as you went into hyperspace. Din Djarin would always be in your heart. No code could ever erase the markings he had left. Even if you truly didn’t see him again, you would still have him. Not in body, but in mind. In the soul. You will remember his laughter, the sound of his modulated voice, and his true face.
No matter how far apart you are, you will always have Din Djarin.
Summary: A mechanic on Tatooine flirts with you. Din handles it about as well as you'd expect.
Warnings: Suggestive language (at the end), very jealous and possessive Din, mutual pining, established-but-not-established relationship, tooth rotting fluff, nicknames.
Word Count: 2.3k
Notes: This is very much inspired by Dandelion by Ariana Grande, it's literally the entire point of this fic LOL. Please feel free to send me requests guys, I hope you enjoy!
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.
“Mando!”
Peli called out to Din before the ramp of the Crest finished lowering. You and Grogu followed behind him, giving Peli a shy wave before she greeted you both.
The ship had been making strange noises for the past few days, and you’d finally convinced Din to get it checked out. After several protests, he gave in.
It was hard for him to say no to you.
“What did you do to her this time?” Peli asked.
“Nothing,” Din replied.
She pointed at the ship and shook her head. “This is what ‘nothing’ looks like?”
You and Din were…something? You’d slipped into this territory where you were basically together, but you weren’t. Not officially, anyway.
You went everywhere with Din. There was never a moment when you weren’t beside him.
He even had a nickname for you — Dandelion.
You’d encountered the small flowers on a planet once, and you were so excited to show Din. Usually, he wouldn’t care, but when it came to you...everything mattered.
The nickname just stuck after that. It started when he called you Dandelion one time, it sort of just slipped out, but you didn’t correct or question him.
You let it happen.
It was little things like that. Things that could be passed off as friendly, but also chartered on the territory of something you don’t do when you’re ‘just friends.’
You even took care of Grogu together. Everyone just assumed you two were a thing.
Peli had introduced you and Din to her new apprentice, and Din took note of the way the mechanic couldn’t seem to stop eyeing you up. Maker, he already had a disdain for this guy. Who even was he? And why was he looking at you like that, and—
“Mando, are you listening?”
Peli’s voice cut through.
Din tore his gaze away from the mechanic reluctantly and looked at her.
“I said your hyperdrive’s practically held together with hope and bad decisions. You planning on fixing it, or just praying harder?”
“I’ll fix it,” Din said flatly.
“Sure you will.” Peli huffed, already waving him off. “Jace, get over here.”
So that was his name.
Jace.
The apprentice finally stepped out from under the Razor Crest, wiping his hands on a rag as he straightened up. He was younger than Din expected. Like someone who belonged in a place like this.
“Hey,” Jace said, like he already knew you.
Din didn’t like that. He didn’t like it at all.
Peli slapped the side of the ship. “Tell him what you see.”
Jace tilted his head, already walking a slow circle around the Crest. “You flew this thing in like this?”
“Yes,” Din answered.
Jace let out a short laugh. “On purpose?”
That got a small sound out of you. Something amused. Just a soft laugh. Not even directed at him, but Din heard it anyway.
Jace crouched again, peering under a panel. “Yeah…this is gonna take a bit. Compressor’s shot. Wiring’s been rerouted three times by someone who didn’t know what they were doing.”
“I knew what I was doing,” Din said sharply.
Jace hummed. “Sure.”
Peli snorted. “Careful, kid. That’s a Mandalorian you’re insulting.”
Jace just shrugged. Then, like it was nothing, he glanced up at you again.
“So you travel with him?”
That question landed wrong immediately.
It wasn't because it was rude, but more because it sounded casual, as if he was interested in you.
Like he was trying to place you somewhere in his life.
Din answered before you could.
“Yes.”
Jace’s eyes flicked to Din’s helmet, then back to you.
“Oh,” he said simply, and for some reason, that was worse than if he’d said anything else. Then he smiled again. “Got it.”
Peli started saying something to Jace about parts they would need, and you had wandered off to inspect some random pit droid Grogu had decided was fascinating.
Din followed automatically because of course he did. He stopped beside you.
“Dandelion.”
You looked up immediately. “Hm?”
“You wanted to go to the market.”
“Oh!” You brightened. “Can we?”
Din nodded. “We have time.”
You smiled so brightly Din thought, not for the first time, that he’d fly across the galaxy if it meant seeing that look.
Beside you, Grogu made a happy noise and raised both arms.
“Yes, you too,” you laughed, scooping him up. “We’re bringing you.”
The little foundling cooed happily and settled against you.
Normal.
Everything about this was normal.
Then:
“Dandelion, hm?”
Peli’s voice made all three of you look over. You smiled. Grogu blinked.
Din just tilted his head.
“Yeah.”
Peli stared. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She pointed between you. “Dandelion?”
“It’s her nickname,” Din shrugged.
Your smile somehow grew.
“It is,” you confirmed.
Grogu patted his little arms against you.
Peli gave you both a knowing look and shook her head with a chuckle before returning her focus to the ship.
Once you got to the market, you were excitedly tugging at Din’s arm like he belonged to you.
You stopped at a stall selling small woven charms, leaning in with interest.
“These are pretty,” you chirped.
Din made a low sound of agreement. “They are.”
You picked one, holding it up to Grogu.
“Do you like it?" you asked him softly. You got a happy coo in response. “I think that means yes.”
Din didn’t comment, but he was already reaching for credits. You blinked innocently at him — this was normal. Very, very normal. You’d never paid for a single thing in the time you’d known Din.
He took care of you like that. It came naturally to him.
“You didn’t have to,” you said with a smile.
“I know,” he replied. “I wanted to.”
You smiled softly. “Thank you, Din.”
Grogu made a happy noise as Din tucked the charm away carefully like it mattered more than it should.
Because it did.
Everything you touched, he treated like it mattered. Even when it shouldn’t have.
When you finally made your way back toward the Crest, Grogu half-asleep against your shoulder, the market noise fading behind you, Din walked a little closer than before.
“It was nice,” you said, looking at Din. “Thank you for taking me.”
“Of course.”
His hand rested against your lower back out of habit.
“You always do that,” you mentioned.
“I know,” he replied.
“…Why?”
Din didn’t answer right away. He just kept walking beside you like the answer was obvious but didn’t need to be spoken.
“Dunno,” he said finally.
But his hand stayed on your back anyway like it always did, until you returned.
The Crest sat open under the hangar lights, still mid-repair when Jace spotted you.
“Hey,” he called, straightening from where he’d been working. “You’re back.”
You smiled. “Yeah.”
Grogu immediately perked up in your arms, making a soft sound when he saw him.
Jace grinned at that. “Hey, little guy.”
Din followed closely behind you but didn’t say anything.
Jace’s attention flicked to you again.
“So,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag like he suddenly had nowhere else to be. “Market was good?”
“It was really nice. He showed me a few new stalls,” you said, gesturing to the Mandalorian that stood close.
When you mentioned him, Din’s helmet angled slightly.
Jace nodded.
“Yeah? That sounds fun. I…was actually hoping I’d catch you before you left again.”
Din shook his head slightly, as if he already knew where this was going.
“I was thinking,” Jace continued, stepping a little closer to you, “maybe next time I could show you around instead. There’s a couple places this guy probably doesn’t bother taking people.”
This guy?
Grogu shifted in your arms.
Din said your name softly. You turned immediately, like always.
“Hm?”
“Come here for a second."
You didn’t hesitate.
You stepped right back to his side, like gravity corrected itself.
Grogu visibly relaxed again.
Jace blinked.
“Oh. Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean…” His voice trailed off.
Din finally looked at him.
“What are you doing?” Din asked.
Jace laughed a little, trying to read the tone. “Just talking. She seemed interested in the market, so I figured—”
“She’s not a job.”
The silence that followed was uncomfortable.
Even Grogu went still.
Jace blinked again. “I didn’t say she was. I just meant I could show her places around here, that’s all.”
Din tilted his head slightly.
“You work here.”
“Yeah," Jace replied.
“You fix ships.”
“Right.”
“You fix ships,” Din repeated, putting an emphasis on ‘fix.’
Jace’s smile faltered a little. “Yeah…I do.”
Din nodded once, like the conversation was concluded.
“So do that.”
Silence stretched.
You shifted slightly beside him, confused now.
“Is everything okay?” you asked softly.
Din didn’t look away from Jace.
“Yes.”
Jace, still trying to recover, forced a lighter tone.
“I mean, no harm intended. I just thought she might want to see more of the city. All good intentions.”
Din finally moved enough that Jace instinctively stopped talking.
Peli stood up from beneath the Crest, wiping her hands on a rag.
“Good,” she said, cutting in before Din could get any snarkier. “Because I am not cleaning blood off my landing bay.”
You laughed, looking at Din with smile as you felt him place his hand gently on your back again.
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.
The ship was finally kriffing done.
And Maker, Din was glad to be out of Mos Eisley. If he’d been there any longer, he would’ve started a war against the mechanic that was pining after you.
He’d been quieter than usual, fidgeting with the controls in the cockpit. You noticed it right away as you watched him innocently from the passenger seat.
The hum of the engines filled the silence between you.
“Din?” you asked as you tilted your head.
His hands paused over the controls.
“Hm?”
You waited a beat, like you were choosing your words carefully, but there was no real hesitation in your voice.
“Are you mad at me?" you asked softly.
That got him to look over.
“No.” His words were flat.
“…Okay.”
Silence.
“You’ve been quiet,” you added, tone still soft.
“I’m always quiet.”
“It’s different,” you whined, now having his full attention. “Don’t be like that, Din.”
More silence followed.
With a sigh, he looked at you through his visor.
“What do you want, Dandelion?”
The nickname made your heart jump. His tone was gentle, it was never anything less than that with you, even though the question sounded packed.
“C’mere,” he said, giving you no time to think of what to say.
You got up hesitantly and tilted your head slightly in confusion.
Clearly, you didn’t move fast enough for him though, because he decided that he wasn’t wasting anymore time. With a gentle tug, he pulled you down onto his lap, making your cheeks heat up.
Right there in the pilots chair, you were sat on Din Djarin’s lap, facing him. You inhaled sharply.
“Din—“
“Please,” he said quietly.
You were frozen, unsure of what to say.
“I can’t do this whole day again,” he admitted quietly.
Your breath caught in your throat.
“What?”
“Watching you,” he said. “Laughing, talking — not knowing what it means.”
Your hands lifted slowly, resting against his chest plate.
“Oh…” you whispered.
He leaned forward just a fraction.
“I don’t know what I’m allowed to want,” he said quietly. “Are you mine? I don’t…”
For a second, it was quiet again. Then you spoke up.
“Don’t what?”
His hands tightened at your waist like he didn’t mean to do it.
“I don’t know how to stop wanting you.”
His admission made you go silent, but you found your voice in the quiet of it all.
“Why would you do that to yourself?” Your voice came out hushed. “When i’m over here trying to figure out how to keep my hands off you. You can't seriously think I want some random mechanic."
“Mesh’la,” he breathed. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“I'm not. I didn’t know you thought you were the only one doing this,” you said softly. “You don’t have to wonder if i’m yours, Din.”
“Don’t I?” His voice came out raspy, like he was barely breathing under the beskar.
“No,” you said teasingly. “Definitely not.”
You settled more comfortably into him, like you belong there and the ship had just finally caught up to what you already knew.
Slowly, you reached up. You weren't rushing.
Your fingers found the edge of his glove.
You tugged it off loosely with quiet focus, like it was the most normal thing in the galaxy, and slipped it off his hand.
He let you.
The glove landed somewhere behind you with a soft thud, like you’d just removed something much more intimate.
Din went very still.
“…What are you doing?” he asked, voice much lower than before.
You glanced at him innocently.
“Nothing.”
And then, like it was nothing at all, you reached for his other hand too, slipping that glove off as well, slower this time. Your fingers brushed his skin just long enough to make the air change.
You set it aside without looking.
You plan on being here long enough that he won’t need them.
It seemed like he was trying to keep himself in place. You hummed softly with satisfaction, and leaned into him again like nothing happened.
Like you didn’t just undo him one layer at a time.
The bullet strap across his chest shifted slightly when you moved your arm. Without thinking, you tugged it off his shoulder just enough to slide it free.
And instead of putting it back where it belongs, you tossed it over the pilot console behind him, casually.
Din exhaled sharply. His voice was strained.
“…Dandelion.”
You tilted your head slightly.
“Yeah?”
Silence stretched as the ship hummed
You took notice of the stars that drifted past the viewport.
And his hands, now bare, tightened at your waist again like he was running out of ways to keep himself steady.
chapter twenty nine : the best kept secret (epilogue)
ao3 link ✿ series masterlist ☆ main masterlist ✧
pairing : bodyguard!Din Djarin x afab!princess!reader
rating : 18+ mdni
word count : 6.1k words
summary : an epilogue for our lovers.
warnings: tooth rotting sweet fluff, language, mentions of sex, an ending so sweet i made myself sick with emotion like omg.
a/n: crying my dick off rn. my moms bringing dinner home rn to celebrate me finishing this and i can't stop crying
☆
The morning sun is warm against your face, you bask in it, unmoving and only half awake until you feel a tiny hand slapping your cheek. The illusion of tranquility is immediately shattered as you softly laugh.
“Mama?”
Your eyes flutter open and you’re greeted by the sight of a little boy in linen pajamas, one pant leg rolled up over his knee as he stands beside your bed.
“Everyone’s awake.” Your son rubs his eyes as he looks up at you, pointing towards your bedroom door.
“Already? Well thank you for telling me.” You reach your hand out which he happily takes as you pull him to your bed side, placing a soft kiss into his dark curls, attempting to smooth out the disarray they're in to no avail. He giggles, pushing your hand away before pointing past you.
“Buir is wearing the birikad in bed again.”
“You’re very observant, sweet boy. Why don’t you go get your brother, bring him here and I’ll send buir to the nursery.” You give him a sleepy smile before you hear the familiar sound of tiny feet running across wood.
You shake Din’s shoulder, his snores stuttering as he sits up in one hasty motion, his eyes still closed as his fingers run through his mess of hair, identical to Arin’s frenzied curls.
“Bottle? Diaper?” His voice is thick with sleep, you reach over, rubbing his back as you sit up as well, kissing his shoulder.
“Stand down, nothing that serious. A certain someone just ran in here and told me there’s signs of life in the nursery.” You run your hands along the fabric strap on his chest. “And he pointed out that you fell asleep with the baby carrier on, again”
“Grogu said all that?” He turns to face you, eyes barely open as he leans towards you to kiss the tip of your nose.
“Save your jokes for someone who actually thinks you’re funny, Djarin.” You pull him in for a kiss by the fabric harness on his chest. When he tears himself from you at the sound of a small cry you stare at his sleepy grin.
You will never get tired of that smile.
“Sounds like someone wants to hear my jokes.” He groans as he stretches, tossing his lower half off the bed before reaching around for his leg, reattaching it and standing.
“Careful in the hall. Lately your son has been insisting on carrying his brother everywhere so you might run into a brawl out there.”
“I’ll keep an eye out.” He yawns before disappearing in the direction of the nursery. Moments later you hear a small scuffle before Arin appears in the doorway holding a very angry Grogu in his arms.
“Put your big brother down, Arin.”
“Little brother.” Arin attempts to correct you as Grogu lets out a squeal of protest. You shoot him a look as you take the child from him, setting the tiny green boy in your lap as your youngest son climbs into bed to join you.
“Just because he’s smaller, doesn’t mean he’s your little brother. He’s still older than you.” You kiss your eldest on his wrinkly forehead as he relaxes in your lap, raising a little green claw to throw a pillow at Arin from across the room. “Grogu, No magic throwing at your siblings.” You chastise him softly, taking his hand and lowering it, reminding yourself to cut his nails later. “Come here.” You beckon towards Arin who instantly jumps up into bed with you, snuggling up next to Grogu as you give both of them a squeeze which Arin wriggles out of, settling on sitting beside you instead.
“And then I told your mother that I was going to find someone who does like my jokes.” You hear Din in the hall before you see him. When he steps into the bedroom the little girl in his arms is just a bundle of giggles. He sets her down on the floor, after a few shakey steps she makes it to your side of the bed.
“Good morning, little flower.” You lift Grogu off your lap, setting him beside his brother who already seems to have gotten over the pillow incident as he tells him everything he wants to do today. You pick up the toddler now demanding your attention. “Did buir do your hair?” You examine the two braids her wispy curls are in as she nods. You cradle her in one arm before looking at your riduur. “Where’s the rest of my garden?” You raise an eyebrow at Din who promptly turns around, revealing an identical copy of the girl currently in your arms, strapped into the fabric harness. The only difference between the two girls is the frown that one wears.
“She didn’t wanna laugh at my jokes so she had to sit in the back.” He shrugs as she kicks her little legs and you reach your free hand out for her.
“Give her to me you evil man.” He grins, reaching behind himself as he carefully removes her from the harness before holding her up to his face so their noses are touching.
“Do you want to go with your mother or stay with me?” He scowls at her which earns him a sharp yank to the hairs on his upper lip. “Dank farrik!” He pulls her away from his face, holding her out towards your waiting arm. “Just like your mother, always so mean to me.” He puts on a mock tone of hurt, both your daughters are finally smiling at the sound of it. You beam down at your girls.
“Dank farrik!” Arin’s voice fills the room as he shouts, you immediately glare at Din.
“Wonder where he gets that from.” You grumble before focusing on the girls, leaving your husband to deal with your sons. “You’ve got a big day ahead of you little flowers.” Both girls look up at you, you see your own eyes reflected in their identical faces. If it weren’t for their wildly different personalities you’d never be able to tell them apart.
They both give you a curious look before their attentions are drawn to Din who has started shoving your other two children in your direction, clearing a space for himself on the bed.
“You shouldn’t say that, ad, it’s rude.” He puts on a serious tone but neither Grogu nor Arin seems intimidated in the slightest, they only fuss as they’re squished between you and Din when he rolls back into bed on his stomach.
“You say it every day.” Arin stretches out, laying across his fathers back while Grogu seems content to stay snuggled up between everyone. “You said it yesterday when Lily put a frog in your shirt.” Din groans loudly, face down into his pillow. You frown down at your daughters. Lily looks entirely unbothered by the revelation of this information, her expression returning to its comical state of sterness. You raise your eyebrows at her, waiting for a confession but you know she won’t say a thing.
So you look down at Grogu.
“Did that really happen?” Your other three children all turn to stare at him until finally he nods.
“Told you.” Arin grins before crawling onto his fathers back, tugging at his hair gently.
Who could have predicted you’d raise such stubborn children.
“Why would you do that? Where did you find a frog?” You look back down at the girls in your lap. Lily remains a vault so you look to the other. “Daisy? Where did your sister get a frog?” The corners of her lips tilt up.
“Grogu brought it in through the window.” Her voice is soft and high pitched as she fights a smile.
“And why did he do that?”
“He was hungry, but buir made lunch, so he gave itta Lily.”
“And why did she put it in buir’s shirt?” You aren’t cross with them, you just can’t help but want her to keep talking, she’s so well spoken for her age and you can’t help but indulge.
“S’ buir’s fault.” She whispers, pointing at her father.
“Was it now?” You put on a surprised voice, Din’s head turns to the side so he can look at you. “What did you do to deserve such a thing?”
“She’s terrible to me, just like her mother.” He laments, reaching a finger out, ticking her neck. Lily’s stern expression falls in an instant, turning to high pitched laughter.
“Buir made ‘er sit in the back of the birikad.” Daisy continues to tell her tale, looking up at you for approval the entire time.
“Why would he do such a horrible thing to such a lovely girl?”
“She putta worm in his sock.” Grogu nods in silent agreement as Daisy continues on. “So he put ‘er on his back an’ she pulled the back of his shirt down an’ she put the frog in his shirt an’ he said dank farrik.” She takes a deep breath when she finishes and you look at your husband.
“So when you said everything went smoothly while I was out-“
“Aside from the worm and the frog everything went smoothly.” He grins for a moment until a small hand grabs him by the ear, you sigh as Arin grabs his fathers hearing aid, tossing it up into the air, on instinct Grogu reaches up, holding it in place in the air.
“Kriff-“ Din grumbles, tilting himself to the side to roll Arin back onto the bed before getting up to retrieve his hearing aid.
“Kriff!” Lily speaks for the first time all morning, her voice like a little chime.
Din has a guilty smile plastered on his face as he looks at you, scooping both boys into his arms as he lays back down. They squeal and try to wiggle out of his arms but he only has eyes for you as he keeps them caged against him.
“She has a terrible mouth, just like her mother.” He whispers.
You roll your eyes, unable to fight off your smile as you set your girls down on the middle of the sheets, once free of your hold they waste no time before joining their brothers in using Din as a personal playground.
You don’t care that you all have to huddle together to fit on the bed.
You wouldn’t have it any other way.
☆
Socks, socks, socks, diapers, socks. They’re only going for an overnight but you can’t be too careful.
“Where are my little flowers?” You’re packing the overnight bag for as Din comes wandering in, putting on a real performance as he puts his hands on his hips. He stares at the ceiling as Lily squeezes between you and the table, hiding her face in your skirt as Daisy ducks under her crib, her yellow socks sticking out. He comes up behind you, wrapping himself around you as he sets several bottles into the bag you’re working on. “Have you seen my little flowers?” You hum softly as he kisses your cheek.
“I have not.” You turn grinning at him as he gives you an exaggerated sigh.
“That’s a shame, I wanted to see if they wanted to read with me for a little while…”
“M’right here!” Lily reaches out from the other side of you, grabbing his pant leg as he grins, reaching down to pick her up.
“Oh my goodness, would you look at that.” He grins, nudging the crook of his nose against the side of her face and kissing her cheek until she pushes him away.
“Itchy.” She whines, slapping him on the mouth.
“The stubble isn't going anywhere little lady, your mama likes it too much.” He raises his eyebrows at her, receiving a small frown in return. “Any other ladies wanna come read with me?” He speaks loudly, the little legs sticking out from under the crib don’t move so he shrugs, giving you one last look before taking Lily out to the living room.
“The coast is clear.” You go back to folding as your daughter wiggles her way back out, coming to stand beside you until you lift her up onto the changing table so she can watch you work. You hum different little songs to her, sometimes just a few notes, sometimes an entire melody, letting her hum and sing them back to you as you finish up, putting their blankets in last before you start dressing her to go. “Are you excited to have a sleepover at your aunties house?” She beams at you as you pull a thick jacket over her head, bundling her up as you tug a hat down over her ears.
“Yes mama.”
“Good, don’t forget to be extra well behaved.” You lace her little boots, lifting her up and setting her on the ground. “Aunt Elaine and Auntie Lysa are going back home later this month so you won’t see them for a bit.” You pat her head as she nods, her cheeks already going rosy from being a bit warm. “Now send in your sister so she can get changed.” She runs out of the room, calling out her sister's name and like clockwork you dress each of your children for the cold. As usual Grogu doesn’t want to wear his hat and fusses as you trim his nails but other than that it doesn’t take long before you’re ready to go. Wrapping a scarf around Din’s neck on the way out the door.
You don’t mind the walk, although with four kids it takes a little longer than it usually would. Din straps the girls into the carrier, holding Grogu in one arm and the large canvas bag in the other while you hold Arin. The cool autumn air filled with the sounds of babbles and chatter as you walk. Elaine and Lysa rent space on the outskirts of the city so you don’t even have to go deep into the afternoon foot traffic to get them there.
When you ring the doorbell you’re immediately swarmed by the excited pair. Lysa takes Grogu from Din in an instant as Arin squirms out of your arms to hug Elaine’s legs.
You’re happy to have family so close to home.
☆
It’s hard to not feel tired the moment you’re briefly child free.
The second you get home the couch beckons you towards it but you resist, you have plans for tonight. Din on the other hand, doesn’t fight his fatigue in the slightest.
“One whole night without kids.” You turn to grin at him but he immediately collapses into bed, pulling the covers up over his shoulders. You immediately yank it back down.
“No sleeping, we don’t do this often enough to spend what precious time we have sleeping.” He sits up enough to grab you and pull you down on top of him with a soft thud.
“We haven’t slept properly in about four years, let’s just sleep for a few hours, then we can spend the whole night together.” He mumbles, voice already groggy.
“We have to go soon, I want to see the lights.” You complain but turn your head to lay on his chest properly, happily soaking in some of his warmth.
You are tired.
And you do have a couple hours to spare.
“I suppose a couple minutes won’t hurt.” It’s still early in the afternoon and you don’t have plans until sundown, when you turn to see if he’s okay with that he’s already fast asleep. Eyes shut and lips slightly parted as his arms absentmindedly hold you tighter.
You lay back down his chest, inhaling the subtle scent of detergent on his top as you let yourself succumb to the exhaustion you rarely even let yourself acknowledge.
☆
You open the closet, taking the boxes sealed shut with locks and setting them on the bed.
You love your people, and you love being the queen, but sometimes you just want to be Din’s. You want to walk through the marketplace without being swarmed, you want to hold his hand under the moon without people asking who he is.
So every few months, when Lysa and Elaine take the kids for a whole night, you live in secret once more, just for a few hours.
You search through your dresser drawer until you find the key, twisting it in the lock before tossing it aside. You reach in, holding up the contents just as Din’s arms wrap around your waist. You jump a little bit, you hadn’t heard him come in.
“Do you miss it?” he murmurs.
“Sometimes. For the longest time this was all I knew you as.” You stare into the silver steel, looking at the two of you reflected against the beskar. “I prefer you without it though.” You set his helmet down onto the sheets before turning around in his arms, holding his face as you held the helm. “Do you miss it?”
“Sometimes. Never when I’m with you.” His lips rest against your forehead for a moment, content to just stay in that position for a while.
“We need to retire the nursery soon, the girls are getting too big for cribs.” you mumble.
“What if we want one more?”
“Last time we wanted one more we got two.”
“One more wouldn’t hurt.”
“They already outnumber us four to two.” You smooth out the fabric of his tunic with your free hand.
“Mhmm, I know. I’m just not ready to get rid of the cribs. When did they get so big?”
“Grogu’s still little.”
“He’s a little bigger now I swear.” You laugh softly kissing his cheek.
“That’s what kids do. They get bigger.” You release your hold on his shirt.“No more sad talk. We get one night alone every six months, I don’t want to spend it all melancholy.”
“Fine, fine.” He takes the helmet from you. “Finish getting dressed if you wanna get there before sundown.” You grab his flight suit from the box, tossing it to him just before he shuts the fresher door. Searching through the box you find your cloak, Leaving behind the weapon you’ve come to learn is called the darksaber as you get ready.
Lacing your boots and pulling the cloak over your head you give yourself a quick once over in the mirror.
Unrecognizable.
As you turn to face the now opening fresher door you’re hit with a wave of nostalgia. The dark brown fabric of his flight suit now accompanied by scraps of armor that you’ve purchased over the years. The only actual beskar items being his leg and helmet, a helmet that you let your sons decorate to keep him from being recognized, neither one of you willing to take the risk of someone connecting the dots regarding his identity.
Messy streaks of green paint run along the outline of his visor as he holds a hand out towards you. You eagerly take it, the two of you rushing outside to the bike, covered with a tarp.
You happily wrap your arms around his waist as he kicks the engine to life, wasting no time before shooting off into the trees.
You don’t mind living in secret as much as you used to, after all, it’s only temporary now. One night, every so often, isn't so bad. Especially now that it isn’t out of fear or necessity, now you do it simply for the sake of being unobserved. You aren’t exactly discreet about the fact that you are together. Although no one ever asks, it's more than apparent who the father of your girls is, and while nobody would dare question you about his parentage, Arin looks more and more like Din every day.
But sometimes you just want to walk with him without everyone thinking about those things.
So you wear different faces, and use different names, and go back to keeping secrets, just for a few hours.
Din brings the bike to a screeching halt in the ship lot, handing over a fistful of credits and taking your hand once more.
“Ready to go, Dorthea?” You can hear his big dopey grin as he drags you towards the bustling sounds of the vendors.
“Of course, Oskar.” You follow behind him as he continues to pull you onward, wanting to get there in time to see the lights.
It’s your favorite part of nights like these.
Every colorful light turns on one by one and somehow also all at once, the flickering and shimmering of the colors as you stare up at them, Din’s hand in yours. It takes a few minutes but when it’s done it’s like the night sky is entirely lit up, your own personal set of stars.
“Happy now?” He pulls you deeper into the markets while you nod, giving your hand a squeeze as you pull him towards the familiar stands, picking up a few different sweets and knickknacks as you always do.
You point and giggle at anything particularly dirty. Somehow, despite all this time and his anonymity in this situation he still manages to get flustered when you dangle leather instruments in front of his face.
His favorite part of nights like these is the music.
You wouldn’t have suspected it based on how stiffly he dances but he loves nothing more than rocking back and forth with you on the cobblestone street.
Tonight a string band plays upbeat music and the square is full of people moving in circles around each other as everyone moves to the beat. When you pull your eyes from the frenzy of swirling vibrant fabrics he stands with his hand out, as if he even has to ask for such a thing.
You wrap your arms around his torso as he spins you around, pulling you into the crowd, people parting to squeeze you into the space. You can’t speak, the music is too loud and you can’t see each other's faces but you still manage to remain in sync. He doesn’t wear gloves anymore, wanting to feel his hands against yours. You stay close, moving in sync, grins on your face as you press your veiled face against his helmet, wanting to be as close to him as possible. The lights shimmer against his armor, the beskar reflecting the lights as you move, colors melding together as his hands go from your hands, to your waist, then to your back, your bodies flush as you dance until you can barely stay upright.
You both stumble back into the cabin, giggling, giddy messes.
Tripping over each other as you get into bed, stripping layers off of each other in the process.
And he loves you like it’s the first time.
That’s how he always loves you now, never that panicked, fearful love where tries to take in every single drop of you for fear of never tasting it again. No, now he loves you like he can’t believe it. Every single time you unbutton your trousers or step out of your skirt he gawks like he’s never seen a pair of legs before. He’ll drop to his knees at the sight of your chest, no matter how many times he sees it. His devotion seemingly knows no bounds and as time carries on that fire refuses to die.
The only difference is that he isn’t afraid to love anymore.
And neither are you.
☆
The kids love the garden.
Maybe even more than you do. They’re careful, even when they’re chasing each other around in circles, to never step on the flowers. None of them are running now though, Grogu, Arin, and Daisy are all with you in the gazebo. It never ceases to amaze him just how easily you can calm them down. Grogu sleeps in the crook of your arm while Arin sits by your feet. Din watches as the little one pricks his finger on the needle he’s currently weaving in and out of the hem of your skirt. He doesn’t fuss though, he’s tough, just like his mother. He flinched before furrowing his brows and continuing his work. Daisy lays on her stomach on the other side of you, crayons are scattered across the gazebo floor as she colors in her notebook.
And you, in the center of it all, radiant, perfect, you.
Reading one of your romance novels.
Summer’s nearly gone now, the little ones are all bundled up in sweaters and scarves and you’re draped in a thick green shawl that you pull tighter around you as a crisp breeze blows by.
He’d stand and stare at you as long as you’d let him if a tiny hand didn’t reach up and pinch his jaw.
“Buir.” Lily snaps him back to reality.
“Yes, ad?” He looks down at her, seeing your eyes represented in the little girl in his arms.
“You’re starin’ at mama.”
“That’s awfully perceptive of you.” He hums as she looks around, a look of concentration on her face as she stares at the ground where she continues to speak to him.
“You say starin’ is rude.”
“I’m allowed to stare at mama.” He has to stifle a laugh as she scolds him.
“Why’s that?”
“Because we love each other.”
“If you say so.” She’s already lost in the conversation as she turns around in his arms, pointing at the yellow petals on their left. “Sunflowers.”
“That’s right, beauty.” He continues to carry her tucked in one arm down the path. “What about those?” He nods in the direction of a bushel of pink flowers.
“Tulips.” She’s always been so serious about the flora, just like you.
“Correct, brains.” He kisses the top of her head, brushing a stray curl out of her face as she points up ahead.
“Daisies.” She announces proudly, turning to him for approval.
“When did you get so smart?” He gives her a shocked look that makes her crack a smile.
“Mama taught me.” She states matter of factly as she crosses her arms.
“Well then, your mother is very smart.”
“Smarter than you.” He gasps as she giggles.
“That can’t possibly be true.”
He carries her over towards the daisies, pointing at the vibrant blue petals of the flowers beside them.
“I’m just as smart as your mother, look, these are roses.” He pokes her in the belly as she shrieks.
“No, buir!”
“Are you sure? Oh wait, you’re right, those are peonies.” He grins at her as she shakes her head wildly.
“Buir! They’re lilies!” Her cheeks go rosy as she giggles, he gives her a confused look, squinting at the flowers one more time.
“Are you sure? I’m almost positive those are daffodils…” He leans forward, kissing her chubby face as she continues to giggle.
“Is he being mean to you?” Your voice fills the air as he turns, you’re holding your skirt up as you walk towards them, holding your arms out for Lily.
“Me?” He says theatrically as he hands the squirming toddler to you as she reaches for her mother. “If anything she was being mean to me.” You always tell him that he was born to be a father, but you, when he looks at you he almost can’t believe just how good you are at it. Lily wraps her arms around your neck, she kisses your cheek as a tiny hand ever so carefully holds onto your necklace. With a small yawn, Lily buries her face in your neck as you smile, your eyes turning from your daughter to him.
“You know she said you’re smarter than me?” He whispers, wrapping his arms around your waist.
“Kids say the darndest things, don’t they?” You smile and it’s like his heart wants to burst from his chest.
“I’ll never get used to looking at you.”
You always say that as if he doesn’t know what that feels like. Everytime you so much as enter a room he feels the same as he did the first time he saw you.
“Where’s the rest of your ducklings?”
“I took them back to the cabin, Daisy was sleepy so I assumed this one might be too.” You rub Lily’s back, the little one is seemingly already asleep in your arms.
“Want me to take her back to the house?” He offers but you shake your head.
“I have to go get your present anyway.” You grin.
“I’ll be here.” He gives you a quick kiss before you turn in the direction of the house.
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little nervous. You’re annoyingly good at gift giving. Despite the fact that you have already given him the greatest gift he could possibly ask for in the form of three little ones and loving his own like you carried him yourself. You still manage to one up him every time.
While your competitive nature towards each other has lessened quite a bit from it’s initial amount it’s still a notable part of your marriage, anniversary gifts being the biggest competition of all.
The gazebo is empty when he returns to it, carefully stepping up onto the bench to reach into the rafters where he’s hidden your gift. He grabs the wooden box, stepping down just in time to watch you step inside with him.
“Can I go first?” Your fingers twitch as you nervously mess with your skirt. You look exactly the same as you did when you left which has him a little confused but still smiling.
“Sure.” He sets the box down behind him, hopefully out of sight as he turns back to you.
“Don’t be mad.” You have a sheepish smile on your face that already has him worried.
“What could I possibly be mad about?”
“You know how we always say that we aren’t going to use the seemingly infinite funds we have at our disposal?” You rock back and forth on your heels anxiously.
“Yes…”
“Because we don’t want them to be spoiled.”
“I’m not following-” He really isn’t.
“Well I may have gone the tiniest bit overboard, and we never said we couldn’t spoil each other.” You bite your thumb nail as you stare at him. “If you don’t like it we don’t have to use it.”
“I’m starting to get nervous, sarad.”
You reach into the pocket of your skirt, holding out a familiar little sphere.
“Grogu thought you might want this back.” You place the gear shift knob into his palm. “Happy Anniversary, Din.” He stares at you, bewildered as he rolls it between his thumb and forefinger. “Obviously it isn’t your ship exactly but it’s pretty damn close.” You muse softly and he nearly drops it.
“Wait- you, you got me a ship?”
“It’s in the lot by the markets we can go later-” He cuts you off, immediately wrapping his arms around you, squeezing you as he lifts you a few inches off the ground.
“You found another Razor Crest?” He’s breathless as he feels a rush of gratitude that only you can give him swelling in his chest.
“I built another Razor Crest.” You smirk, clearly pleased with yourself. “Grogu helped, of course, to make it authentic, and this one has less weapons and more child safety measures but other than that it should fly the same.”
“You brilliant woman.” He can’t help but stare at you in disbelief, how he has been blessed by you will always be a mystery to him.
“Now we can travel whenever you want, you always say you want to show them the galaxy.”
“I- I don’t know what to say.”
“Good, you talk too much.” You kiss him, he’s genuinely speechless, what do you do when the woman who has given you everything gives you more?
“Your turn.” He whispers, feeling even more nervous about his own gift now that you’ve given him what is quite literally the perfect gift.
He hands you the simple wooden box with a little latch to keep it shut.
“The failsafe?” You look up at him as he nods, popping clasp up as he opens it, holding it out towards you.
“How did you- when did you?” Your eyes are growing wet as you stare into the box before looking up at him.
“Took a little while to put it all together.” He murmurs, pushing the container into your hands until you finally take it.
“You kept all of this? All this time?”
“Do you like it?”
“Like it? I- It’s everything, Din, quite literally everything.” Tears flow freely now as you sniffle. You sit on one of the benches within the gazebo, carefully going through each and every item, looking more shocked than he was when you gave him your gift.
He’s glad you like it, after all, it took him a few years to put it together.
You sift through everything, wiping your eyes every so often as you do.
A plastic blue lily, wrapped in black lace. A silver anklet with gaudy sapphire jewels dangling from the clasp. Several sheets of parchment with ink illustrations on them. A handful of pressed and dried leaves. A couple of pink and gold buttons. And a candy wrapper.
The centerpiece of the gift being a rectangle wrapped in thin brown paper, tied with a green bow.
You hold it carefully, he watches as your fingers trace the ribbon.
“That’s your real gift, the rest is just some stuff I saved.”
“It’s a wonderful gift, Din.” You wipe a few stray tears on your shawl. “It’s all perfect.” You carefully peel back the paper until all that’s left in your hands is the tattered and worn book.
The Smitten Paladin.
He watches with a smile as you flip through it, realizing it isn’t any old copy of the book. It’s your copy. With his favorite color, and your rules written out within.
“Oh, Din.” He watches as your face scrunches up with emotion, the way it does when the kids hit different milestones, or when the two of you finally got married.
“How about we call this one a tie?” He can’t help but feel a sense of pride, finally finding you something on the same level as your gift. Of course it wasn’t an easy task to top a ship like that but a part of him can’t help but think that he couldn’t have found you a better gift than this.
“Actually…” You smile despite the puffy redness around your eyes and he groans.
“No actually, let me have this.” He pulls you to him, kissing the bridge of your nose first and then your lips, letting him indulge in you for only a moment before pulling back.
“Are you sure? It’s a pretty good gift, good enough to tip the scales.”
“Fine.” He sighs, an exaggerated look of defeat crossing his face.
“Close your eyes.” He doesn’t argue with you, shutting his eyes as you manipulate his arms so he’s holding his hands out, feeling something extremely light being set in his palms. “Now open.”
Socks.
Socks that are too small to currently fit any of his children.
His heart races as he holds the little brown booties in his hands.
“Are you serious?” He can feel his face getting hot, and his mouth going dry as he whispers, kneeling down in front of where you sit.
“We can manage one more member of Clan Mudhorn. This does mean we’ll have to keep the nursery for a few more years, and expand the cabin-”
“I’ll build you a dozen cabins if that’s what you want.” His brain moves at a million miles an hour as he stares in awe at the gift that is you. “Dank farrik.” He can’t help it as he whispers to himself, hands on your stomach.
“I win.” You tilt your head to the side, grinning at him as you take his face in your hands.
“You win. Every single day you win because you gave me them and you gave me this.” He lets you pull him up to meet you halfway, kissing him once more. His hands on your hips. “I love you, so kriffing much.”
“I love you.” You wrap your hands around his. How did he get this lucky? How is he deserving of this life you have given him?
He holds your hand when you walk back to the cabin, finding the children in the main room, making themselves a pillow fort as you rush to help them he watches from the sidelines.
He spent a lot of time watching you.
Watching you wander, and read throughout the castle.
It’s hard for him to believe that now he gets to watch you be a riduur and mother.
Because of you he gets to have a home.
Because of you he has a bed, and a house. Because of you he found his way back to Grogu, and now he has three more little ones and another on the way.
Because of you he can just be a man, a riduur, and a father.
With you he can just be Din.
☆
a/n : i'm like sick to my stomach with crying so that's cool lmao. i thought i would have more to say but this is it and i'm proud of it and i'm happy to have shared it. i can't believe i was lucky enough to have so many people to share this story with. from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
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pairing : bodyguard!Din Djarin x afab!princess!reader
rating : 18+ mdni
word count : 8.4k
summary : the not so secret happily ever after.
warnings: language, fluff, mild angst, pregnancy, smut, din has a lot of insecurities, they're having a couple of problems but the biggest one is lack of communication, breeding kink, pregnancy sex, oral f!recieving, p in v sex, masturbation, creampie, come eating, din comes really fast but it's sweet, nongraphic childbirth, domestic bliss, ro making things up about star wars lore
a/n: this is it my loves, i truly hope that this is the ending people wanted. i'm extremely happy with it and i'm extremely emotional so im gonna go sit down lmao.
☆
You’d spent the better half of the day trying to get on top of him.
Every time you managed to get close he’d simply set you down on the nearest surface with a kiss on the cheek and go back to doing whatever he was working on.
You haven’t had sex.
Not since everything happened.
You’ve tried, a few times but it never seemed right, you always asked if you could stop, opting to just lay together instead. You were making yourself sick with worry that he was unsatisfied so you took a day off from the meetings and the royal duties to just stay in the cabin and watch him work.
You just want to do something nice for him.
He does everything.
He cooks your meals, he rubs your feet, he spends his entire day working, he’s nearly tripling the cabin in size, and he does it all on one leg.
Well, not technically on one leg, he has the prosthetic but still. He hobbles with no complaints around the house and all you do is sit all day in the castle, talking.
So you try. All day.
Until the two of you are getting ready for bed.
“Come on. Seriously, I'm fine.” You put your hands on his shoulders as he got into bed beside you.
“Stop trying to seduce me.” He kisses your temple, rolling you onto your side as he fills in the space behind you. “You don’t need to force it.” He lifts his bottom half onto the bed, carefully removing the steel leg, setting it onto the floor next to him. One of the only pieces of his Mandalorian days he chose to keep. He had all of his armor melted down, save for his helmet, some of it was forged into a new leg, but the majority was given to the foundlings.
“I’m serious! I’m in the mood.” You aren’t and he knows it, so any efforts to roll over and face him are stopped as he wraps his arms around you, one hand resting protectively over your stomach.
“You’re not.”
“I’m desperate for it.” You whine loudly but he only laughs, his nose bumping against the back of your neck.
“Go to sleep.” You can hear the grin in his voice.
You wait a moment in the silence.
“Are you sure?” You start trying to turn again.
“I swear to the Maker-”
“Okay! Sorry!”
Maybe it was hormones, or maybe it was just everything that had happened. But during your first trimester no matter how hard you tried you just couldn’t seem to find the energy to be physical with him. It was as if your libido vanished entirely. You tried several times but he always just kissed your forehead and told you to relax.
“You’ve given me everything I have ever wanted, I need nothing else from you.” He laughs against your spine as he kisses you there.
“You’re sure?”
“What do I have to do to prove to you that I’m fine?”
“Let me take care of you…” You whine, trying to push back against him as he holds you in place.
“Stop worrying about me.” He continues to chuckle, hot against your skin as he kisses your cheek before pulling the quilt up over you both, it only takes a few minutes for him to start snoring behind you.
☆
You want to completely disassemble the monarchy.
Din wants you to be as relaxed as possible during your pregnancy.
Neither one of you has been getting what you want. Turns out being queen doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want, there are limits, limits that have you arguing with your dearly departed husband's family most days.
You spend the better part of the next month in and out of the throne room, looking down at the table Kodo’s family set up below the throne. You argue over everything, you want to destroy everything that they stand for and obviously they don’t agree.
So you have to compromise.
At the end of the day it ends up being better than nothing.
The royal family no longer has any political power over Naboo citizens, but they get to keep their titles, including your own. They’re ceremonial now.
The royal family can no longer collect taxes from the people but they get to keep all their funds currently in the vaults.
The people get to vote in new leaders but the royal family gets to have automatic representation on the council.
It’s a give and take but when you finally get a chance to walk through the city with Din the people look happy and you can’t help but feel a rush of pride at the little changes. The little smiles you see every now and then, the way people stop to talk to each other, the way people look at you.
It’s different.
It’s happier, it feels safer.
It makes spending your first trimester with the Harand’s completely worth it.
And it’s a good thing you came to an agreement and got everything sorted out when you did because you don’t want to get out of bed most days during your second trimester.
You feel great, no more nausea and your energies even up.
You’re just so kriffing horny.
Morning, noon, and night.
Din’s finished the added rooms in the cabin so you’re both tasked with getting everything in order in your own room and in the nursery but you don’t let him get much done.
If you had any worries about leaving him unsatisfied those first few months they’re gone after the first week of your second trimester, you’re more than making up for it. You’re actually worried about him keeping up with you.
Of course having a bed you love helps. It was the first thing Din made when he started working on the cabin. A bed that wasn’t too big but fit you both perfectly, and you make sure to put it to good use.
It came on suddenly in the last week of your first trimester.
You had woken up early one morning craving something you hadn’t wanted in quite some time. So you rolled over, tracing a finger along his bare chest until his eyes fluttered open, his breath hitching as he gave you a sleepy smile.
“Morning.” His voice in the mornings always reminded you of how he used to sound through the modulator, low and raspy.
“Good morning.” You whispered back, letting your hand drag down his stomach until he stopped you, kissing your forehead, you shuffled towards him, feeling his cock hardening against your hip. You furrow your brow in confusion as he starts getting up. “Is something wrong?”
“You don’t need to force it for my sake.” You know he isn’t upset, he’s never voiced concerns about your sex life but he’s convinced himself that you just don’t have a sex drive right now. When in reality you’ve woken up almost painfully needy.
“Din-“ You start, reaching towards him.
“Sarad.” He took your hand in his as he situated his leg.
“Do you still want me?” You won’t be upset if he says no, after all you haven’t wanted him very much recently.
“Always. But I’m not gonna let you pretend for my sake. Your hormones are different now, maybe after the baby is born you’ll feel a little different, if not, I’ll still be sleeping here next to you every single night. Nothing’s gonna change that.”
“But-“
“I’m gonna take a shower.” He kissed your hand and left the room, leaving you hot between your thighs and suddenly worried that he’d never believe you were ready.
You had brushed him off and been clearly uncomfortable often enough now that he had resigned himself to making no more attempts.
He took a lot of showers.
And you could pretend you didn’t hear him groaning your name through the door but it still sent a pang of guilt through you that no amount of reassurance could change.
You hear the water turn on as you lay back in bed with a frustrated sigh.
You have the galaxy's most devoted husband, you could tell him you never wanted to touch him again and he’d never ask why. He’d simply love you from a little further away, and you love him with all of your heart for that but in that moment you just wanted to be fucked.
So you rolled over and stuck your hand in your nightstand drawer, searching for the cold metal of the vibrator you’d bought ages ago. When you finally found it you experimentally tested the buttons, grinning when you realized it still worked. You set up some pillows against the headboard to lean against them, bending your legs at the knee as you reach under your nightgown, finding your thighs sticky, your panties doing nothing to contain the arousal coursing through you.
For a second you’re worried you’ve forgotten how to do it but the moment you switch on the toy it’s like riding a bike. The motions, the patterns, all of it comes rushing back and in just a few shakey breathes you're already on edge.
You can hear him over the buzzing, you hear a few thuds, closing your eyes you imagine him on the other side of the wall.
Without his helmet.
You haven’t been able to think about him like that since he abandoned his creed, now it’s all you can think about.
His hand up against the tile, steadying him. The other wrapped around that pretty cock of his. You turn up the vibrator as you picture the water cascading down his skin, making his curls straighten out as he pulls back his foreskin, his pretty pink tip’s probably leaking down his shaft.
“Din-” You whisper to yourself, focusing on the grunt you can hear faintly followed by the strained sound of your name. Your stomach tightens. His eyes are probably squeezed tightly shut, creasing in the corners as he sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. “Din, please.”
“Kriff.” He hisses out loud enough for you to hear clear as day.
You hear him stifle a moan, is he biting his own hand? You decide it’s for the best that you do that now as well, covering your mouth with your palm. You chase the tightening in your stomach, dipping the toy into the wetness pooling at your entrance and back up to your clit. You’re so focused on getting off that it barely even registers when the water turns off in the other room.
“Fuck-” You whine softly, turning it up one more setting.
You open your eyes when the door creaks open, Din stepping back into the bedroom with a towel held loosely around his waist. You squeeze your thighs together, your eyes watering as a gasp is forced out of your stomach, your body convulsing briefly.
Maker, you’re more pent up than you thought.
You wet your lips with your tongue as his grip on the towel tightens, his eyes go wider than you’ve ever seen them and he coughs.
“M’gonna go make breakfast.” He manages to mumble out as the tips of his ears burn up, he gets dressed rather hastily before rushing out of the room.
When you go to the dresser to find something to wear you pick something that rides up on your stomach. You don’t really have a bump yet, Din insists that he can tell, often kissing you just above your belly button when he does but you don’t really notice a difference.
You meander out into the kitchen, already having to yank down the front of your top.
Maker, maybe you are showing.
You innocently look through the conservator as he sets the table, frowning as he pouts himself a mug of caf. You’ve been wanting some for weeks but he won’t let you have so much as a sip.
“I think I’m gonna make some cinnamon rolls tonight.” You sit down at the table as he sets a plate of buttered bread with meat and eggs.
“That sounds lovely.” He kisses the top of your head, bringing you a glass of juice and a few vitamins before sitting beside you. “Do you need me to go into the city and get anything for you?”
“No, I think I’ve got everything I need. What are you doing today?”
“House work. I need to fix a few things and install the heaters, it’s gonna be cold when the baby gets here.” You’re rather excited for winter, you haven’t seen snow since you left Hoth. It’s already started to chill outside. Naboo has long autumns and you aren’t due until the winter.
“Do you need any help with that?” You ask as you take a bite of the rich dense bread, already knowing the answer.
“No, you just relax today.” Ever since you finished all your royal business Din hasn’t let you do any work around the house.
“I got that package from Elaine a few days ago, I could finally unpack everything.” You nod towards the crate in the living room and he’s already shaking his head.
“I can do that when I finish up the heat-“
“I can’t just sit around all day everyday.” You point your fork at him as he gives you an apologetic look.
“You could if you wanted to.” He says hopefully before you flick a piece of sausage at him. He easily catches it out of the air, popping it into his mouth.
“Oh and we should have sex tonight.” You try to say it as casually as possible but he immediately chokes on his food, coughing briefly before clearing his throat and taking a sip from his mug.
“Mesh’la, how many times do I have to tell you not to worry about that.”
“It’s not for your sake, it’s for mine.” You’re not even halfway done with your breakfast as he takes his last bite. Quickly standing and rushing his dishes to the sink.
“We’ll talk about it later, I gotta get started on some stuff.” He’s walking around you carefully, avoiding your angry glare as he makes a hasty escape towards the third bedroom.
“If you don’t listen to me I’m not letting you pick the middle name!” You yell after him but all you get in return is a muffled chuckle.
You finish your breakfast, taking your time as you chew, feeling rather frustrated despite the orgasm you already gave yourself less than an hour ago.
The third room is currently your makeshift laundry room, you keep anything that doesn’t have a proper place in there. Currently Din is fixing the window in there so you take it upon yourself to do a load of laundry. You empty the washer, filling it again as you turn on both machines.
“Mind if I watch you for a bit?” You smile at him as he nods, wiping a bead of sweat from his hairline. You take the opportunity to hop up on the dryer when he turns back to his work.
You close your eyes, letting your head roll to the side a bit as you lean forward. You smile to yourself, a wave of deja vu washes over you as you think of everytime you’ve teased him prior. You get lost in the memory of the two of you in the library, you briefly forget your goal entirely as you rock yourself back and forth, humming softly to yourself.
Your thoughts eventually drift to how he had touched you that night and when you finally come to your senses your face is hot as your fingers grip your thighs. When you look at din he’s staring at you slack jawed.
He clears his throat, his face going red as he quickly goes back to work, finishing up quickly before getting ready to leave.
“Help me down?” You hold your arms out to him and you swear he gulps as he steps over the laundry basket to grab you under your arms, setting you down.
“All good?” His voice is strained as he watches you nod.
“Perfect.”
Except it isn’t perfect.
The bastard remained unconvinced.
And you remain frustrated out of your mind.
He takes a break after installing the heating system, when he sits on the sofa, sipping a glass of water you take it upon yourself to finally go through the baby clothes Elaine sent you. The large crate is marked with a calligraphed L&E. You carefully break open the top, opening the envelope placed on top of the many fabrics. You can’t help but smile when you see who it’s addressed to.
Princess,
Is it still princess? ‘Queen’ seems like a bit much, although you should have seen the High Magistrates' face when we told him the Mandalorian married royalty.
He wants to visit when the little one is born but unfortunately we won’t be joining him. Elaine’s a bit sensitive to the cold but we’ll see you when it warms up. She’s terribly excited to be a godmother, even if she doesn’t show it. When Din told her the sex she started sewing immediately. Took two weeks for her to make all this, you can expect more soon. She can’t seem to help herself, our house is full of tiny socks and hats.
The shop’s doing well. Karga alone buys enough clothes to keep us in business but things are good. I still don’t know how Elaine sews as much as she does or as well as she does but she hasn’t slowed down since we moved.
She misses you, even if she acts all tough about it. I miss you too, we’ll visit as soon as it’s spring.
Send pictures of the nursery when it’s finished.
Love, Lysa
You look down at the contents and are taken aback at the sheer amount of baby clothes you’re faced with. You grab the first thing that catches your eye, little green overalls.
“Oh my gods.” You hold them up for him to see. Din’s gaze goes soft as he stares at the fabric. He slides off the sofa to sit on the floor beside you, taking them as you begin looking through the rest of the clothes.
“Are you sure he’s gonna fit in these? They look small.” He holds the overalls in front of his face as you fish out a handful of striped socks.
“That’s how big newborns are, my love. He’s gonna be small.” You unfold a large patchwork quilt, marveling at the craftsman ship as Din gives you a skeptical look.
“These are just so… tiny.” You laugh a bit at the sudden anxiety in his voice.
“I thought Grogu was a baby? You should know how small babies are, how old was he when you found him?”
“Fifty.” You shove his arm.
“Funny.” You stop laughing the second you find a little gray hat with black yarn patterns. “Maker, you’re gonna die when you see this.” You flip it around in your hands, showing him the mock design of his helmet, the thin cross of his visor.
“No kriffing way.” He takes it from you as you fight off a grin.
☆
When you’ve finished going through everything Din packs it all back up, taking it to the nursery as you bake, simultaneously trying to think of different ways to seduce your riduur.
You shoo him away when he tries to help, eventually he settles on sitting on the couch. Reading from where he can see you.
You’re strongly considering just getting “stuck” in the washer and calling him to help you, you’re pretty sure you saw that in a holo at one point.
By the time you finish baking you still have nothing, taking them out of the oven and icing them before placing one on a plate and making your way over to him. You pull yourself up into his lap, gently taking his book and setting it down beside you.
“Mesh’la.” He says in a stern tone, his voice wavers a bit as he struggles to keep his composure.
“I thought you like my baking?” You pout and somehow he falls for it.
Pregnancy has made him even more infatuated with you, if that’s even possible. He’s somehow more gentle with you than ever before.
“Of course I do.” He mumbles sweetly, leaning forward to kiss your cheek. You tear off a chunk of the pastry, something you’ve done before, and bring it to his lips.
“Open.” You say sternly and he immediately does, letting you feed him. If it’s possible for a man to be both extremely relaxed and extremely stressed out then that’s what Din currently is.
You stay in his lap.
Feeding him until the plate is empty, he even licks your fingers clean and you’re so mesmerized by the plush softness of his mouth that you can’t help yourself.
You fall forward into him, and he flinches.
He never flinches.
You immediately back up, crawling off his lap as you give him a look of concern, trying to figure out if you’ve hurt him.
“I’m- I’m sorry.” He swallows, avoiding eye contact.
“Don’t be sorry.” You whisper it, leaning forward, resting your head on his shoulder, he takes your hand in yours.
“I just- I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this for me.”
“Why are you so insistent that I don’t want you?” You finally just tear the band aid off.
Silence.
Briefly, you know he’s deciding if he should say it or not.
“You stopped wanting to have sex when I took the helmet off.” He blurts out and you nearly fall off the couch at the absurdity of his reasoning.
“Din that has noth-“
“And it’s fine. There’s no reason for you to pretend to be attracted to me just for the sake of my ego. You can love me without loving,” He gestures at himself. “this.”
It makes you want to cry.
To think that he thought you were withholding your affections because you didn’t like how he looked. It makes you even more upset to know that he was okay with that, he was willing to live a life believing that to be true and simply never touch you like that again.
“Look, I still have the helmet, we’re going to make this work.” He whispers. His leg bounces up and down until he suddenly stands. “Give me a minute?” He’s already headed for the door. You sit there, a little stunned.
You decide to give him space, you can talk when he comes to bed. You dress in a thin brown camisole and green panties, you try to make yourself look nice, hoping maybe he’ll relax at the sight of it but based on the look he gives you when he comes into the bedroom you’re a little worried it’s having the opposite effect.
“I love you and-” You start but he just collapses into bed next to you.
“Please- mesh’la I can’t, this torment is unbearable.” His hands clutch the fabric of your clothes, his fingers trembling. “You’re making this extremely difficult for me.” He’s downright flushed as he pleads with you.
“I won’t stop until you believe me.” You insist further as he sinks his eyes into you, his pupils swollen and frantically searching your face as he swallows loudly. “You couldn’t be more beautiful to me. It had nothing to do with you, I just- I needed a little time after everything.” You whisper sharply, maintaining eye contact with him the entire time. “I’ve been waiting to wake up. I keep thinking you’re gonna disappear and I’m going to lose you all over again and none of that is your fault.” The room is quiet aside from your combined breathing.
“Are you sure? Really sure?” He’s speaking so quietly you barely hear him as his fingertips ghost the exposed skin under the bunched up fabric of your top.
“Look, I’m not going to force you to touch me, but I don’t know how else to get my point across and if you really want me to stop all of this then I will-“
“Don’t stop.” He whispers, barely audibly as his hands hold your face, lips pressed to yours. Your head falls back into the pillows as his mouth immediately makes a beeline south, kissing your sternum, you tangle your fingers in his hair, pulling him back up. “Please- I wanna taste-” He downright whines as you pull his bottom lip between your teeth.
“After.” You pant into his mouth. “I can’t wait, I need you.”
You do, terribly.
You guide his hand between your legs and his fingers push your panties to the side in an instant, his mouth falls open in a silent moan as he feels the wetness there. He eases a finger into you as you whine impatiently. “I don’t wanna wait-” You reach down to grab at his wrist but he just kisses you again to silence you.
“I don’t wanna hurt you.” He mumbles, he listens to an extent, pushing in a second finger. The stretch is delicious. You feel like your skin is on fire as you try to push yourself further onto his hand.
“I don’t care, please Din I need you so bad. I need your cock.” Your brain is foggy, you're so turned on right now, you’d do anything to feel him inside you.
He nods, shoving his trousers down and pulling his shirt up over his head as you squirm out of your own clothing. Almost immediately he looks overwhelmed, his eyes don’t know where to settle as they make their way down your body. Finally he swallows, taking his cock in hand, tip pink and pretty as he strokes himself so you can see how he’s already leaking, just for you.
He eases himself into you, slow and steady as you try to stay still. It’s all too much, his thick length pressing deeper and deeper into you until you’re both gasping, forehead to forehead with him fully seated within your heat.
“Okay?” He manages to spit the words out despite the way his chest heaves as you nod.
“Din fuck me please I can take it.” You plead with him, he looks skeptical so you rock your own hips, it isn’t much but it’s enough to make your eyes roll back as you nudge him deeper.
“Look at me.” He whispers as you blink, trying to focus on the warmth in his eyes as he searches your expression for pain.
“You’re so pretty.” You mumble out. He looks a little surprised by the sentiment, his tongue poking out between his lips as he looks at you.
Has anyone ever told him that?
“Thank you.” Is the last thing he says before slamming his hips forwards, the head of his cock bumping against your cervix. His thrusts are erratic and needy as he watches your face intently. He’s so worked up and it’s been so long and the combination of it all has him practically whimpering against you within minutes.
“I can’t- I- It-” He begins to stammer, his lips are wet and swollen, his eyes fight to stay open, pupils darting everywhere like he’s trying to take in as much as he possibly can as his cock pulses inside you.
You want him to come. You want to watch him, watch his face, as he finishes. You want to see him hot and desperate just for you, you want to know that you made him feel this good after just a few minutes.
“I wanna see, please, please Din.” You lay back, gasping with every stutter of his hips, taking in the sight as he squeezes his eyes shut.
“I- I- kriff, love you so much.” He hisses out as his hands fist the sheets. The veins in his neck stick out as his mouth falls open, an obscene moan is ripped from him as he rocks his hips forward one last time, you can see where the two of you are connected. His cum spilling out around his length, forced out by the sheer girth of him. His breathing is staggered as he slumps forward, kissing you with a fire that you didn’t realize you missed so much.
He doesn’t kiss you nearly as much as you want before his mouth is already moving down your body, any complaints you have never make it past your lips. It feels too good when he touches you like this.
He squishes the bridge of his nose into your stomach, just below your belly button as he kisses the soft skin there. His mouth hasn’t even made its way between your legs yet and he’s moaning into your flesh, his fingers kneading the meat of your hips.
He pushes your thighs wider apart and you swear you see him drool at the view he’s presented with.
He looks up at you, his eyes wide and needy, waiting for permission. You nod a little too quickly and he dives into you. His tongue immediately works its way into your still dripping hole, he’s everywhere, precise and deliberate as he pushes his own seed back into you.
“So- fucking- good-” He mumbles to himself as if you aren’t even there before flattening his tongue against your clit, it’s enough to have your thighs closing around his head, the cool metal of his hearing aids stings your flesh as you come undone. Your vision goes white as you whine, high pitched and breathy.
He doesn’t stop for a second, eating like you’re a goddamn buffet. When you catch a glimpse of his face his jaw is slick with a combination of the two of you. His eyes are dark as your head falls back, you want so desperately to watch but it’s too much, all you can do is whimper and grip his hair.
He wraps his lips around your clit, sucking and swirling his tongue around the bundle of nerves until you’re coming all over again. You collapse back into the pillows, already exhausted but smiling so hard your face hurts. He sits back on his ankles, lifting your legs as he kisses your calves.
He’s perfect like this.
Tan, scarred body on display to you in the warm lamp light. Skin covered in a thin layer of sweat that makes his hair curl and stick to his forehead. His eyes are dark as his tongue pokes out, swiping across his lips to taste the remnants of you, his cock stands proud against his stomach, already hard and aching for you once more.
“Don’t relax just yet, I’m not done with you.” He mumbles into your tender flesh, hands grabbing your ankles as he yanks you forward, slotting himself between your legs again.
It’s a good thing because you certainly aren’t done with him, you can’t get enough of him for the next six months.
Further into your second trimester nothing’s changed. If anything you’re even more insatiable. If it was possible to get pregnant twice you’d have done it by now.
You also make a point to kiss his face as much as humanly possible, you can’t help but wonder if anyone else ever has.
He likes it in a way you aren’t yet familiar with, he leans into your lips at every opportunity, eager to feel your mouth against the apples of his cheeks, the sensitive skin of his eyelids, the sharp angle of his nose, and the prickles of the stubble on his chin.
And you are more than happy to indulge him.
☆
The third trimester wasn’t much better but you managed to better manage your time. You went on walks, even if they were short, you’d insist on walking around the gardens or the markets whenever you could.
You didn’t think it was possible but somehow Din’s become even more protective. If he had things his way you’d sit in the cabin all day while he stared at you from a few inches to your left.
With that sharp protectiveness has come a silence, it takes a few days for you to notice but you realize just how quiet he’s been. It’s subtle but you know something's off. Word’s become soft arm touches, he holds you a little tighter at night and he never asks if you need help anymore, he just does everything before you can even get to it.
It’s seemingly a couple of things.
You know something is bothering him but he’s become sort of shy.
When you walk the markets he’s still viewed as a member of your staff but you don’t hide things anymore. You’ll feed him by hand if you buy a snack cake, you’ll hold his arm as you walk. He’ll even kiss your forehead if the opportunity arises.
But he’s timid.
And it isn’t until you’re visiting Vivian that you realize what it is. You had been telling her about how hard it’s been for you to decide on a shade of green for the nursery when he had hidden his face in your hair. You had entangled your fingers in his and thought of it as nothing more than an act of affection from him but it started happening more often.
And then it clicked.
He only ever did it after being directly addressed, when people were looking at him. You finally brought it up one night when you’d been trying to get comfortable on the couch, your protruding stomach making it exceedingly difficult.
You’ve got two talking points to cover, the sudden shyness, and getting to the bottom of his silence, although you’ve got a sneaking suspicion as to what it’s about.
You eventually settled with your head in his lap and your feet up on the arm rest, smiling up at him as he played with your hair.
“You know you can wear the helmet when we go out if you want.” You finally blurt out as he gives you a confused look.
“Why would I do that?”
“Well I know that you still have it and you just seem a little… uncomfortable sometimes without it.”
“I thought you liked my face?” He says it with a teasing tone but it has you sitting up out of the position you struggled to find for so long.
“I love your face. But I also want you to be comfortable.” You press a long kiss into the coarse facial hair of his jaw, he’s been so busy with house work and you it’s gotten longer than you’ve ever seen or felt it.
“I’m comfortable with you.” He turns his face, nudging his nose against your lips until you kiss him there as well.
“I just noticed that you’ve been a little tense, especially during outings.” You tilt your head, giving him a lopsided smile as he stands, leaning down to cradle your face in his hands.
“I’m just not used to it, cyare.” He stands, examining the space in the room. “I want to put a fireplace in before the baby comes.” He mumbles as he moves the loveseat, making space against the wall.
You seize the opportunity, might as well kill two birds with one stone.
“Speaking of when the baby comes, I thought we were going to visit your little one at some point?”
His shoulders stiffen up for just a moment before he shrugs.
“I guess I’ve just had other things on my mind, nerves about the baby.” He doesn’t look at you, instead he measures the space on the wall with his hands.
“I thought you were excited to be a dad?”
“I am a dad, and I am excited.” He’s mumbling, he hasn’t talked about Grogu in ages and it’s making you worry.
“You’ve been quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
“Not with me.”
He turns and stares at you for a moment before clearing his throat.
“I’m scared.” He sits back down beside you and you wrap your arms around him as best you can with your bump in the way.
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I’m scared that the baby won’t like me, or that I’ll mess them up, or something like that.” It is so much easier to tell when he’s lying, now that you can see his face. You never would have thought his cheeks would get so rosy.
He’s a natural with kids and he’s been more excited than you are for the baby, he even spends all his free time embroidering the baby’s name into their clothes.
“Din.” You say sternly, pulling back to look at him.
He chews the inside of his cheek a bit.
He whispers something but he’s so quiet you can’t hear him.
“Din, please.” You take his head in your hands and force him to look at you.
“I’m scared that if we go to get Grogu he won’t want to come home with us.”
A pang of sorrow hits your heart.
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Maybe he’s happy there, maybe he’s forgotten all about me.” He looks hurt in a way you’ve never seen him before, if you weren’t days away from your due date you’d get on a ship and take him to his boy right now.
“He hasn’t forgotten about you.” You take his hand.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you. And I know that I’d never forget you.” He still looks unsure as you stare into those sad eyes of his. “We have to at least try, it would be better to know. This baby already loves you, that’s enough of an indicator to me that Grogu feels the same.”
“You have no proof that this baby already loves me.” He finally cracks a smile at what you’re implying.
“Come here.” You lay your head back down in his lap, making a second desperate attempt to get comfortable. You grab his hand, lifting the fabric of your top until your stomach is exposed, placing his large palm over the swell of your belly. “Talk to him.”
“What am I supposed to say?” He’s looking at you like you’re insane but you just shrug.
“You talk to him all the time.”
“Yeah but you never put me on the spot like this.” With his freehand he rubs the back of his neck.
“Just do it.” He takes a deep breath, his thumb rubbing small circles into your skin.
“Hello ik’aad.” He says softly, looking up at you for approval as you nod. “I’m excited to meet you soon, little one.” You watch as the taut skin moves ever so slightly, a little kick against Din’s fingers. His eyes go wide as he sits there a little stunned, you put your hand over his.
“He does this most of the time when you talk to him. He likes your voice.”
“What else should I tell him about?”
“Anything.”
He smiles at you, the corners of his eyes crinkle before he smiles at your bump.
“We painted your crib today, we decided to leave the walls alone but we wanted something to be green.” He carries on excitedly as you continue to feel the little flutters within you. “And- and someday you’re going to share a room with your brother.” You smile as your little one reacts to his fathers voice, you sit up, facing him.
“No more worrying. And if you’re going to worry then I want you to tell me.” You kiss as much of his face as you can. “Okay? Do this for me, please?”
“Okay.” He nods as you give him one last kiss on the lips.
You move to sit between his legs like you used to in the nook, you find yourself a book as he puts his hands back on your bump while you read.
He spends the rest of the night talking to your stomach.
☆
Arin Kuiil Djarin (Harand) was born with a full head of hair. Dark, messy curls that you could make out even through your tears when he came into this world.
The future monarch. (A ceremonial position.)
A screaming ball of tears in your arms, crowned king from birth. A boy everyone knew as the only son of the recently departed Kodo Harand.
Your “royal advisor and personal guard” was beside you the entire time. Holding your hand and kissing your sweat slicked forehead as he whispered to you, telling you just how strong you were. It was one hell of a night but when the morning came suddenly you were parents to a strong, loud little boy.
Din held him first, after he cut the umbilical cord the doctor handed him to him. You watched as he cradled the tiny crying baby in his arms, shushing him softly as he rocked him. It took only a few whispers from his father before Arin calmed down, gasping faintly as Din slid into the bed next to you. You laid your head against his arm, unable to tear your eyes off of the tiny miracle.
“Do you wanna hold him?” Din’s voice cracks as he continues to stare at him.
You nod, a little scared about how small he is but you hold your hands out regardless as he carefully transfers him into the crook of your arm. You’re holding your breath as you look down at him.
When he’s safe in your arms he finally opens his eyes.
He is just a little copy of your riduur.
Dark curious eyes scanning your face as you burst into another wave of tears.
“He’s perfect.”
“He’s perfect.”
You both whisper at the same time, laughing softly. You hold him tightly, Din’s arms wrapped protectively around both of you.
Your entire universe in one little medcenter bed.
☆
You go on a lot of walks.
It helps you get out of the house and people love to see Arin. Din wears a baby carrier Elaine made with the little one strapped to his chest while you hold his hand. Everyone loves to see the little king, telling you that he’s such a good baby.
People often say he looks just like his father, you always laugh and smile at your brown haired boy.
He really does.
He acts just like his father too. Even as a baby you can see his personality shining through. He likes to fight you on a lot of things, mostly vegetables and wearing his socks, but he loves you endlessly, your little mama’s boy. You never thought you’d see the adoration from Din’s eyes in someone else's but here he is, smiling up at you like you’re the sun, just like Din.
Your son was one year old when you met your second son. (Technically your eldest.)
You had urged Din to go to him sooner but he always found excuses, finally he told you he wanted to wait until Arin was a little older. On his first birthday you finally convinced him, and your family took a trip to a planet called Ossus.
And you met a little boy who you loved as a son from the moment you met him.
He certainly wasn’t what you were expecting but the moment he saw Din you recognized the look in his eyes as the same look Arin gives him first thing in the morning. And from that moment on you knew he was yours.
You couldn’t ask for sweeter boys in your life.
You finally found your peace.
Your freedom.
Things are a little different now but you never find a reason to be upset about it. You just learn to live with it.
Sometimes Din has to cut up any fruits or vegetables you’re preparing for dinner because the wet slicing sound makes your heart race.
You sleep with a lamp on because Din trembles when a room goes completely dark, when he asks why you don’t turn it off you tell him you just like having it on because you know he’ll never tell you just how afraid he was when he was trapped beneath the stone and earth.
You wrap him in blankets when winter comes and cradle his head against your chest, desperate to keep him warm. You see the vacant look in his eyes when a chill settles in his bones. The moment you see him shiver you bundle him up and drag him to bed, warming him with gentle and precise kisses until his eyes soften up again.
Din always wakes you up if he’s leaving the room after you’ve fallen asleep. It doesn’t matter if he’s going to the fresher or if he’s going to grab the baby and come right back. Because he knows that if he isn’t there when you wake up, you will freeze up in terror and cry softly to yourself until he returns.
On stormy nights, when the wind blows a certain way that resembles a low wailing, Din will always find an excuse to send Lysa a transmission, asking how Elaine is doing.
You learn to live with the little thing’s because sometimes you can’t heal completely, but you live regardless. You have reasons to endure.
You endure for Din.
You endure for Grogu.
And you endure for Arin.
Din always says he was born to love you.
You agree but that wasn’t all he was born for, he was born to be a father.
Arin and Grogu taught you to be a mother, but Din was made for fatherhood.
That’s what you think about, as you sit in the loveseat by the fire, book in hand. You aren’t actually reading it, you’re too busy watching the scene on the floor in front of you. Your sons peek out of the pillow fort they’ve built against the sofa, Arin covering his mouth as he holds in a giggle, staring at you with his wide brown eyes. You give him a small wave, watching as he darts back inside.
“Are you staring at your mother, young man? Staring is very rude.” You hear Din’s voice from inside the fort, a large bump in the blanket roof where he sits. More giggles follow as he crawls back to the small entryway, you watch as he shrieks when Din drags him back into the fort, taking his place and mimicking the little boy as he stares at you.
He looks at you with a devotion that never wavers.
“You’re my creed. Everything I have, everything I am, it’s all for you. For both of you.”
He still tells you that often. Except now he says for all of you.
He crawls out of the fort, his face red from exertion as he makes his way over to your chair, like he’s under some sort of spell that pulls him towards you.
“How are my girls, buir sarad?” Din’s out of breath as he grabs the armrests of the chair, caging you in as he kisses you.
“Tired.” You grin at him as he kneels down in front of you, resting his forehead on the bump you’re cradling with your freehand. You set your book down on the end table next to you, content to watch as he knocks his nose against the strained fabric of your dress.
“Sarad’ika.” He smiles, kissing the top of your stomach, you don’t mind losing your nickname to someone it suits more. “Let me put them to bed, I’ll be right back.” His lips turn up as he stands, looking down at the two boys with drooping eyes and mouths open in yawns.
“Go with your buir now my loves, I’ll come tuck you in in a minute.” You groan as you stand, Din scooping up both babies with ease.
“Haav ca’nara.” Bed time. He whispers, carrying them towards the fresher, you hear the water run as he washes their little faces and brushes their teeth.
You tidy up, folding blankets and rearranging pillows as you hear water splashing from the other room followed by a loud sigh. You stifle a laugh as you watch your boys running from the fresher down the hall towards their room, a soaking wet Din soon follows. You continue to clean, waiting until it gets quiet before making your way out of the room. You walk past the nursery, empty and waiting for its next occupant, towards the door with the faint glow of a night light. Peering in from the doorway you see all your boys in one room.
Grogu and Arin lay in their respective beds, each is far too big for the small boys but they’ll grow into them. Grogu’s already asleep as Din kneels beside Arin’s bed, brushing a curl out of the little one's eyes.
“Goodnight, ik’aad.” He leans down, kissing his son's face, earning a sleepy smile from the boy.
“Night, buir.” He mumbles out, he doesn’t speak often, quiet like his father, but when he does it’s always clear.
Din smiles, standing, kissing your cheek as he passes you, going out into the main room to lock up as you make your way to Grogu’s bedside, watching his eyes flutter as you press a kiss into his wrinkly green forehead.
“Goodnight, my love.” You mumble before turning to Arin’s bed, sitting beside him as you watch him fight sleep, trying to keep his eyes open. “Sleep now my little love.” You murmur to him, kissing your fingertips before bringing them to his forehead.
“Goodnight mama.” He yawns out as you watch him finally succumb to sleep.
You leave the door open a crack, letting out another groan as you rub your stomach, Din waits for you in the dimly lit hall, holding out a hand which you happily take, letting him pull you into an embrace.
“No more babies after this one, my back is killing me.” You give him a stern look as he brings both hands to your bump.
“You have given me everything, I wouldn’t possibly ask for more.” He whispers. “Although I do think we could handle one more.” He raises his eyebrows at you and you can’t help but laugh.
“Fine, you carry the next one then.” You reach behind him, pushing open the door as you grab the collar of his tunic, pulling him into a kiss while you laugh against each other.
“I love you.” He mumbles.
“I love you too.” There is no hesitation. There hasn’t been for a long time.
And you go to bed.
In your perfectly sized bedroom.
On your perfectly sized mattress.
With your Din.
☆
a/n : this is technically the last chapter of bks <3 :,) epilouge in one week. q&a tomorrow so send your asks with questions. all my love to everyone whos read this far.
i no longer have a tag list !! follow @lincolndjarinnotifs for updates !!
pairing : bodyguard!Din Djarin x afab!princess!reader
rating : 18+ mdni
word count : 6.0k
summary : judgement day. (din's version)
warnings: language, angst, violence, gore, blood, torture, murder, death, ro makes things up about infection bc they're too scared to google it (what if there's gross pics??), din is morally grey at times, pregnancy
a/n: worked a ten hour shift, got home, made an iced coffee, hammered away at my anvil until this was written and edited. now it's bed time lol
Silence.
That’s all there is in his brain.
It’s hard enough as is for him to hear. It doesn’t help when he’s been beaten half to death. All it had taken was a few firm punches to the side of the head and any remaining hearing in that ear was lost.
It’s not looking great. Or sounding great, all he can hear is ringing as he hits the ground, hard. He knows someone is yelling at him but how the fuck is he supposed to know what they’re saying when he can feel a thin bead if blood dripping from his ear canal.
He never manages to figure out what they’re saying but he gets the gist of it when his armor is ripped from his body. He puts up as much of a fight as he can manage, his efforts skyrocketing when they yank his helmet off, leaving him bare before a couple of guards.
For the first time in his life he knows what it's like to have that choice taken away from him.
And he cannot hide the fear and discomfort that come with losing his helmet behind a mask any longer. Thankfully he isn’t exposed for very long, per Kodo’s orders his face is to remain covered. Of course they go with the most humiliating option, a fabric bag thrown over his head. It’s somehow worse than being exposed, now he can’t hear or see.
So there’s no warning for the beating that immediately follows his imprisonment.
He’s been in countless fights through the course of his life but nothing like this. He’s never been unable to fight back. They restrain him and beat him senseless, and he can’t so much as hold his hands up in defense.
And then they leave.
He has no way to tell the time. So he simply sits and waits in the emptiness that is his life now.
Until someone new comes in to beat the shit out of him.
It’s a horrific existence, to sit in the cold darkness, unable to hear an approaching threat until they’re actively upon you. He doesn’t know when it happens but at one point he loses all feeling in one of his legs, he knows he was cut there but he has no idea how bad it is. He spends his time trying to assess his wounds, he stretches out what parts of himself he can as he does his best to keep his blood flowing.
And the entire time all he can think of is you.
He knows nothing of what’s become of you. He did everything in his power to ensure that you would be blameless but he has no idea if it worked, that itself is a worse torture than any of this. He’s in agony wondering if you’re down here in a cell receiving the same treatment as he is.
☆
He didn’t think things could possibly get worse.
Until the day when the footsteps stopped before his cell and the door to Elaine’s swung open instead.
He heard most of it.
Every wet, gory sound.
He took his time with her, laughing all the while and when he was finally done Din called out to her.
All he got in response was the faint, distant sounds of her agony.
The next day he feared they had returned to finish her off when he heard the ear piercing screech of her door opening but Elaine’s screams turned to soft whines. After a while his own door shrieked open, it took him a while to realize who it was but after she repeated herself a few times he was able to make out the word Lysa and was able to relax briefly. She tried to feed him but he told her he was fine, despite the twisting pain in his stomach, he’d lost too much.
His face is all he has left. It’s all he can cling to now.
She tries every day despite his protests but he doesn’t mind. He likes having someone to talk to, it helps his hearing when he can focus on one person speaking at a time.
Then came the day where he felt hands on his chest and he tensed in anticipation of a hit that never came.
It took a while to register and for a moment he thought it was a trick but he recognized the smell of you, and the familiar, gentle nature of your touches.
You were an angel.
Feeding him, being with him, loving him.
He would have done almost anything for five more minutes with you when Lysa told you it was time to leave but he knew you couldn’t be caught down here, it just wasn’t safe, so he let you go.
And he found peace in the knowledge that you were unharmed.
From that point forward he endured for you.
Not in hopes that you would find some way to get him out, or that he might find his way back to you. He endured simply for you. For the idea that he might get to look upon your face one last time before he goes.
He had just about accepted his fate when Lysa came to him, unlocking his cuffs.
“I messed with the shift schedule.” She speaks in a hushed whisper directly into his ear so he can hear her.
“What?”
“I messed with the schedule, for the next two hours there will be no guards, one empty window. I’m taking Elaine, gonna get her off planet.”
“Nevarro.” They’ll be safe there, maybe someday he’ll bring you to visit them.
“Where is that?”
“It’s an outer rim territory, go there, find Greef Karga and tell him Din Djarin sent you.”
“I will.” She presses the key into his palm. “You won’t get a second chance. Don’t waste this.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not doing this for you.” It isn’t said with cruelty, it’s a fact.
That’s okay, he’s doing this for you as well.
And just like that she’s gone, when he takes the bag off his head he’s alone. Immediately he gets to his feet, nearly screaming in pain as he tries to figure out what his next move is.
“Don’t waste this.”
She’s right.
He won’t get another chance, he can’t mess this up.
If he leaves Naboo he knows he’ll never get you back. They will lock you away, you’ll be hidden in some tower making heirs for that monster, never allowed back in the public eye while the “dangerous” Mandalorian is free.
That’s his reasoning. He tries not to think too hard about the other aspect of running away.
That you might think he left you.
Finding you and taking you with him sounds like a good option but when he really thinks about it he realizes the risks are simply too high.
If they realize he’s gone and you’re gone before you can get on a ship they’ll close every port on Naboo, you’ll be trapped on this wretched planet and hunted like animals.
It wouldn’t matter much anyway, getting that far would require him being able to run. With the condition he’s in he isn’t even sure he can walk. It takes some work, and a lot of biting his own fist to silence himself but he manages to stumble across his cell.
So running isn’t an option.
And he can’t leave you.
He promised himself he would never leave you again, he stayed when you told him to go, he stayed those four days of waiting, and he’ll stay now.
But he has to be smart, and he has to be lucky.
So he sits back against the wall, sliding his wrists back into the cuffs, leaving them unlocked.
And he waits.
☆
He can’t make out much of what the man is saying but he recognizes the low, gravely timber. It’s the same man who’s tormented him several times but more importantly it’s the man who hurt Elaine.
The bag is ripped off of him and he can’t help but light up at the sight of only one man.
He can handle one man.
He’s weaker than usual, and he isn’t expecting it when his mouth is forced open, a knife slicing into his tongue.
It’s more difficult than it ever has been to fight, every muscle and injury screams for him to stop but he still manages to get the man on his back, from there all he has to do is slam his head into the stone.
It’s been a long time since he had to kill someone.
He thought it would feel worse, he’d be lying if he said that being around you hasn’t softened him up. But he feels fine, almost accomplished. He’s one step closer to you. He drags the body to an open cell a few down from his, taking the man’s uniform he dresses himself and takes his own clothes, tossing them back into his cell as he moves as fast as he can with a barely working leg.
The guard's uniform fits but the man's skin is significantly paler than Din’s, he’ll never pass as him.
“You won’t get a second chance.”
Walk and think.
Think of a plan on your way to it.
He marches out of the dungeons, every step is agony, and his mouth continues to bleed as he tries to think of people he wouldn’t mind killing who wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.
The answer comes to him while he’s rubbing the raw skin of his wrists.
He’s known since he started working here just how shitty the security is. Even in his current state it’s rather easy for him to sneak into the guards station at the front entrance of the castle. It’s even easier for him to search through their bracelet database and find out exactly where the bastard is.
He wasn’t sure why he planted the bracelet on him that day in the market, a small part of him always did want to go back and find him, maybe teach him some manners. It was easy to slip the tracker into his bag, he even truly considered killing him at one point just to send a message to any one else who might try to touch you but you wouldn’t have wanted that, so he let it be.
He hopes you won’t be too mad.
He simply finds the tracker labeled ‘Mandalorian - LOST’ and memorizes the location, thankfully it appears to be in a residential area just outside the castle. He takes one extra moment to search through a few extra files, when he finds the staff lists he’s met with three blank spaces.
He fills in one of them.
Every step is blistering pain but he breathes heavily through his mouth, continuing to push through as he descends the steps towards his goal. He can’t help but wonder if he even has the strength to do any of this but what else is there to do? He has to get back to you.
Whatever it takes.
Later on, when he tells you what happened on this night he makes up a story, simple and believable, because in all honesty he doesn’t even know how he did any of it. His own strength in that moment frightens him a bit, all he knows is that he was looking for the man who accosted you in the markets all those moons ago and the next thing he knew he was standing in a halo of broken glass in the man's home.
He knows you probably wouldn’t approve but he had wanted to kill him the first time he had grabbed you in the market, after the second time he wanted to make it hurt. The dungeons are a mercy compared to what Din would do to him.
He’s running out of time so he has to improvise, he knocks the man out when he finds him in his bedroom, tearing the welding goggles off the nameless man's head. He cuts his hair with a shard of glass from the window, trying and failing to make it resemble his own.
It’ll have to do.
He tells himself before dragging the body in through the back servant's entrance he’s used several times to sneak in and out of the castle with you.
He’s slick with sweat, at least his leg doesn’t hurt anymore, by the time he gets to the bottom of the steps there's barely any feeling in it at all.
It’s one hell of a task, getting the nameless man into the cell and chained to the wall unnoticed but by some stroke of luck he does it, finishing his task by removing the man's tongue in one swift motion with a knife. Silencing the only witness to his escape.
He looks over everything, making sure it’s all in its perfect place before adding the finishing touch, a bag over his head. Once it’s done he rushes towards the dungeon's entrance.
He should move, get out of there and fast but he can’t help himself. Not after what they did to Elaine.
So he checks the shift schedule, he waits until the last possible moment, when the next shift of guards arrives he hands them the tongue, trying not to wince at the undisturbed look on their faces, and he tells them that he’s going to do one last sweep before they switch. They all seem more than happy to have someone else doing the rounds. And he takes his time, slowly and methodically checking every cell until he gets to Elaine’s, and even then he waits just a little longer, giving them as much time as possible to get on a ship and far away from here.
Even if it’s just a few extra seconds.
Then he yells.
His words make no sense and are garbled because of the state of his tongue but he gets the message across just fine.
He yells that there’s been an escape, that a prisoner is missing and in the commotion of it all he slips away. On his way back to you.
He’s so focused on seeing you again it never even crosses his mind just how many people have now seen him without his helmet.
☆
“You won’t get a second chance. Don’t waste this.”
Lysa’s words continue to echo through his head.
He has to do this exactly right. Or he’ll lose you all over again.
He has to get into the castle. The quickest way to you is going to be being a staff member, but first he has to make himself presentable. So he goes to the cabin. Surprisingly untouched, Kodo must not have cared enough to have it vacated.
He’s barely standing when he stumbles in through the door, heading straight to the fresher and peeling back the boards that hide his bacta stash.
He is so fucked up when he finally looks in the mirror. He's practically a wild animal as he scrambles to get a vial of bacta open.
It’s unbelievable that no one asked him if he was okay, his face is mangled. Large gashes originate at his mouth and move up and down his face. A deep cut runs across the bridge of his nose, coincidentally directly over a scar he already had.
He makes quick work of it. Lathering a thick layer of bacta onto each wound before opening his mouth. Thankfully his tongue is still attached in some places, it’s easy to coat in the healing ointment but it’s difficult to keep it from bleeding, but he manages. The real challenge is his leg. He limps out to the kitchen with a bottle of bacta between his teeth. Grabbing himself a knife from the drawer as he sits at the kitchen table, propping his leg up on a chair with a groan.
Fuck.
He’s seen enough battle injuries to know just how bad it is. Dark lines that he knows mean infection run along his calf.
“Fuck.” He verbalizes his distress as he peels back more of his pants.
Okay.
The infection doesn’t go past his knee.
Okay.
He doesn’t have time to be in denial over how bad it is.
He has the credits to cover a prosthetic but he doesn’t have the time. He’ll be in recovery for ages and that simply isn’t an option now. He can fight off the infection for a few more weeks but after that there’s no way he’ll be able to keep his leg.
He can’t leave you alone in that castle with Kodo.
So he steels himself, grabbing a wooden spoon off the counter to bite down on as he cautiously cuts away any decaying flesh as well as chunks of meat where the infection is worst. He’s lightheaded when he fumbles through one of his drawers for his cauterizer, sealing each wound with an unsettling sizzling sound.
He feels half dead when he finishes, haphazardly pouring the contents of the bacta bottle onto his leg before passing out on the kitchen floor.
☆
As eager as he is to get back into the castle he knows he needs at least one more day to recover. So he tends to his wounds, and tries to teach himself how to walk all over again.
He takes no breaks, keeping himself in a constant state of motion until the next day. He dresses in the provided clothes from the cabin, a wave of self consciousness washes over him as he walks up the palace steps in broad daylight, face on display for all.
He gives the name he had put into the files at the door.
Written on a slip of paper.
Din Djarin
His tongue is still healing, when he tries to speak all he can manage is a few incoherent syllables so he doesn’t bother.
He barely holds it together when he’s face to face with Kodo, he can’t believe that he’s directly dealing with servants until he begins explaining to them that they are to report any and all strange behavior from the queen back to him.
And then he’s taken into a room.
And he gets to see you for the first time in weeks.
He doesn’t even get to feel a fleeting sense of joy because there is something terribly wrong with you.
That’s the first thought that crosses his mind when he’s finally brought before you.
It’s the scariest thing he’s ever done, to stand before you, face bare. His good leg shakes like all hell and he can’t figure out what to do with his hands. Being found out isn’t even a concern at this point; he just hopes you’re okay because it’s more than clear to him that you aren’t well.
Your face looks hollow and his immediate worry is that you haven’t been eating. Your eyes have gone dull, his heart aches as he realizes the fire that he fell for is gone.
He yearns to step forward and fix it. To reignite what’s burned out but you won’t even look at him.
He so badly wishes you would just look, maybe, somehow you’d know.
But you never do.
You just leave, locking yourself away once more and he’s stuck with a week of staff training before he gets to see you again.
☆
You aren’t the same after the execution.
He had tried to warn you, to give you some kind of sign that you weren’t alone, but you’d thrown the daisies into a wall and he couldn’t do a thing to help you. He wanted so badly to say something, anything, to let you know it was him but he was only just starting to get singular words out and he just couldn’t keep up when you ran, his leg getting worse by the day.
You just wouldn’t look at him.
He had managed to purchase a hearing aid for his still working ear so he was able to hear the rumors the other servants said about you.
They were all mostly the same.
That you’d lost it.
That Kodo had driven you mad and you were going to snap.
He kept a closer eye on you after that, he had even tried leaving a different flower, blue lilies, like the ones you had back home, but they received the same treatment as the daisies.
It was the day he started talking again that you snapped.
After two weeks of bacta treatments he had regained feeling in his tongue completely and could speak, it was late at night when he’d finally done it and he wasted no time going to find you. Instead he found your room empty, when he knocked the guards told him you’d left.
So he searched for you.
As quickly as someone with a barely working leg could.
He caught sight of you just as you started making your way up the tower steps, Kodo’s hand in yours. The sight made his stomach drop but he followed you regardless. To say that he was in anguish was an understatement. He had been avoiding stairs for a while now and suddenly he had to climb an entire tower's worth.
He was slow moving, making progress at a snail's pace until he heard your screams. High above him he heard raw and pained cries and suddenly it was like he had no limp at all, as he ran the rest of the way to you.
When he found you he couldn’t stand upright any longer, he collapsed on the floor and pulled you to him, his hands shook as he got to feel your warmth for the first time in ages.
Any pain he was in temporarily fizzled out when you held him back.
He made it back to you.
☆
You can’t stop looking at him.
You’re aware of the circumstances, you should act first, look later but he’s here. Actually, really here. You aren’t imagining it, you can feel him under your trembling palms, he’s real.
Your Din.
You don’t even know where to start.
How did you miss all this?
The hawkish nose you’ve felt against your skin countless times. Plush lips, thick eyelashes, and dark eyes you’ve only ever dreamed about. It’s hard in the darkness but you can see just how pretty he is. Your pretty boy.
“We should run. No more wasting time, no more excuses. Just you and me on a ship.” His voice becomes urgent and you know he’s right but you can’t get on a ship, they’ll never let you leave the grounds.
“They’ll never stop looking for us. Maybe before I killed Kodo we could have gotten away with some cunning escape, but now? I just committed regicide. They won’t let us go.” Your voice is starting to go shrill as your panic rises.
“What other choice do we have?”
Kriff.
Can’t stay, can’t leave.
Your mind races as you close your eyes to think, letting the pieces fall together until you have a coherent plan.
“What if there was a way no one would ever come looking for us?” You take his hand, intertwining your fingers. “We wouldn’t have to hide. No more secrets, just us. We live here and no one objects.”
“Cyare, that just isn’t a possibility.”
But it is.
“I’ve been reading a lot, when I lost you, I read a lot. And not just romance books, every book I could get my hands on, I learned a little about this planet's history. According to Naboo royalty traditions, I take Kodo’s place as the reigning monarch.”
“I thought it passed to the closest living male relative.” He gives you a skeptical look.
Not if they think you’re carrying the last king's child.
“No… it goes to me.” You mumble, thinking over everything else. You have to think fast and you have to think smart. He doesn’t dare interrupt as you focus.
You’ve covered everything on your mental checklist when a dark thought crosses your mind.
“Would you think less of me if I did something out of spite?” You whisper, holding him tighter. “If I wanted to do something terrible?”
“I would kill a man for looking at you if you asked me to.”
You don’t doubt that.
“Do you trust me?” You start to stand, taking his hands as you help him to his feet.
“Always.”
“Then I need you to get Leo for me.” He frowns the moment you say his name.
“You’re sure?” You nod, pressing your face into his neck.
“I need you to do it, I can’t.” He knows you aren’t just asking him to bring Leo here, you’re asking him to end this.
“Of course.” He murmurs. “One last terrible thing.”
One last terrible thing.
Then you’re done.
“Bring him here, then I need you to follow my lead from there, there’s no more time to deliberate. We have to act, now.” You both know you’ve spent too much time planning, you pull him close, hugging him tightly before letting him rush back down the stairs. Your brow furrows when you see just how hard walking seems to be for him.
You spend the few minutes that he is away trying to steady your breathing. Your mind is having a hard time deciding what to focus on. All you want to think about is Din but you know you’ll have plenty of time to do that once the two of you are safe.
It doesn’t take long, eventually you see Leo making his way up the stairs, Din isn’t far behind.
You consider for the briefest moment, just forgiving him.
For the longest time you considered Leo to be nothing more than someone who could be a bit annoying, you never thought of him as downright cruel.
But then you see his expression.
He looks at you as if he’s owed something and all your resistance snaps. You know he can’t see Kodo’s body in the darkness so you let him walk to you.
“My queen…” He approaches skeptically as Din blocks the entrance.
“I wanted to talk to you about the Mandalorian.” You clear your throat and he immediately frowns.
“I do not think that is wise.”
“Did you know him, at all?” This has nothing to do with your plan, you just need to know.
“I only interacted with him in brief instances.” You nod slowly.
“And you knew how much he meant to me when you handed him that death sentence, right?” At this moment it doesn’t matter that Din is alive and well. You don’t care about that. You care about the days of agony he was put through, the pain Elaine had inflicted upon her when she got caught in the crossfire.
“There’s no reason for us to have this conversation.” He almost turns to leave but you speak again.
“I love him.”
“Loved.” He snaps back quickly, as if this entire ordeal is exhausting to him.
Your jaw twitches.
“Do you think he suffered down there?”
“Not at all, he was given a swift death, I’d consider him lucky.”
“What about Elaine?” You’re surprised when Din speaks, Leo seems just as taken aback as you are.
“She got what she deserved for witnessing an act of treason and doing nothing about it.”
That’s the final straw for both of you.
“You know what, I think you are deserving of a reward, Leo. Din?” You look just over Leodall’s shoulder where Din’s eyes have gone nearly black.
“Turn around and cover your ears.” The voice that speaks is one you didn’t think you’d ever hear again, it isn’t Din, it’s darker, deadlier. The Mandalorian is speaking now and you do exactly as you’re told. You turn, squeezing your eyes shut, you put your hands over your ears but even that cannot keep out the sounds of the carnage behind you.
He takes his time.
At first you aren’t sure how he kept him so quiet but when Din turns you around to face him you see how. It would be hard to call for help with a broken jaw, especially after your own tongue was shoved down your throat.
You squint, searching over the damage to his body and see where Din carefully wrapped Leo’s stiff fingers around the vibroblade.
“Are you okay?” He’s covered in gore when he asks and you simply nod, a few stray tears in your lash line.
“I’m going to finish this.” You mumble, giving him one last look of reassurance before you do the thing you’ve been doing quite a lot of lately.
You scream.
You shriek, holding yourself closely to Din. It’s mostly an act, your wails of terror that echo through the halls. But a small part of you truly wonders if you’ll ever recover from the things you’ve done tonight.
After a few nerve wracking minutes you’ve got dozens of guards taking in the sight of your mess.
You both play your parts perfectly.
You cling to Din like a lifeline as you tell the head guard what happened.
“Kodo and I, we- we were walking around the castle, he wanted to show me the view from the tower.” With a quivering finger you point to the window you know has the best view of the castle grounds. “We were celebrating. We were so happy we didn’t even see Leo following us.” You hide your face in Din’s tunic, letting out a shuddering exhale to imitate a sob. “I had just told him I was with child when Leodall attacked me.” You make a real spectacle of yourself as you weep against Din’s shirt, Din who notably goes rigid. “Kodo tried to protect me, he wanted to protect his heir but Leo just- he-” You whimper, earning yourself a room full of sympathetic gazes. “I screamed for help and thankfully this servant was here, he saved my life.”
That’s all they need to be convinced, after all, who wouldn’t believe the queen.
At one point you’re asked why Leo would ever do such a thing.
You tell them he hated Kodo.
Because he refused to make him a lord.
And you speak loud enough for every guard in the room to hear you when you tell them that Elaine was innocent, that Leo falsely accused her.
There were never any follow up questions. All of it made sense to them and even though it came from a terrible thing you’re free. You’re more than free. According to the way the monarchy on Naboo is structured you’re technically queen regent until your child comes of age.
Kodo gets to die a hero.
The king who sacrificed his life for his unborn child. (That bothers you for quite some time.)
But he dies nonetheless.
And you can live with that because at the end of the day they’re putting him in the ground and you’re up here, with Din. You’ll have to wait an appropriate amount of mourning time before you take his hand in public, but he’s yours now. No one can tell you otherwise, what kind of person tells a widowed queen what she can and can’t do?
When the room clears you take him to your chambers, dismissing the guards who stand watch.
“Kodo’s dead, leave me be.” Is all you say as you push past them with Din, you hear a brief worried discussion outside your door before they leave in a hurry. Din looks around the destruction of your room with a look of concern before his eyes settle on you. “Sorry, I- uh, didn’t handle things well when I thought you were- well.” You mumble apologetically but his look of worry is no longer focused on your room, it’s on your stomach as he makes his way over to you, carefully stepping over the mess.
“Are you- are you really…?”
“Yeah.” You smile at him but his reaction isn’t exactly what you were expecting.
He cups your face in his hands, searching your eyes for any signs of distress but you know he won’t find any. Right now it doesn’t matter that you’ve done unimaginable things. It doesn’t matter that you’ve killed. Because somehow, despite it all, Din is okay.
“I’m so sorry. If I had known I would have killed him long before you did.” He murmurs.
“Hmm?” You hum softly, unable to tear your eyes away from his intense gaze. In the light you can see a little scar across the bridge of his nose, you want to reach out and touch it.
“It doesn’t matter to me. We can do whatever you want, I’ll raise them as my own. I am more than willing to love this piece of you.” There’s a painful sincerity in his face and you become hyper aware of the fact that he assumes your baby really is Kodo’s.
“Din-” Almost immediately he interrupts you; he drags his hands down your body, resting them on your stomach.
“And we can live in the cabin. I’ll build a nursery the moment everything settles down, I will be the only father they ever know.”
“Din.” You say a bit more stern, trying to snap him out of his rambling.
“Sarad’ika.” His thumb rubs a small circle against the fabric of your nightie.
“It isn’t Kodo’s.” You give him a reassuring smile as he freezes in place.
And you get to see it all.
Every emotion you never got to enjoy when he was hidden behind steel.
You get to watch as his concern melts away into a brief confusion that is quickly replaced with shock and processing. You get to see the way his eyes soften, and his lips part ever so slightly as he inhales a shuddering breath. If you had known just how expressive he was you never would have let him wear the helmet in the first place. He chews on his bottom lip briefly as he stares at you. Swallowing loudly.
“It’s mine?” The single sentence is shaky and breathless as you nod.
“All yours.” You whisper back.
His arms cage you in as he pulls your body flush with his, nearly lifting you off the ground.
“How is that- we were so careful…” He turns his head, pressing a series of kisses into your hair. You give him a skeptical look as you laugh.
“Were we?”
“I guess not.” He shrugs, grinning from ear to ear as he looks at you.
“It’s really mine?” He leans down to kiss you before you can even answer, making you laugh against his lips.
“It’s really yours, and I already picked out a name.” Your heart flutters as his eyes light up, you just want to stare at him all day, partially because a part of you is worried he’ll disappear from your life all over again.
“Without me?” He sounds genuinely hurt, you lean up to kiss him again, hoping to soothe him.
“I think you’ll like it.” You mumble against his mouth after a moment.
“How do you know it’s going to suit them, it’s too early.” He chuckles.
“I just know.” You really do. A part of you had always had a vision of them, a little carbon copy of Din. A baby boy with his dark eyes and hair, you can feel it. “Can we go to the cabin? I don’t think I can stomach another night in here. The next few days I’m gonna have to deal with everything I did tonight, and I just want to spend tonight with you.” He nods, pulling you into one more embrace, unable to keep his hands off of you as he smiles. As much as you adore finally being able to look at him you suddenly worry that he might not be comfortable. “I have your helmet, if you want it.” You turn to fetch it but he keeps you pinned to him.
“Don’t bother.”
“Are you sure? What about the creed?” The corners of his eyes crinkle as his smile softens.
“You’re my creed. Everything I have, everything I am, it’s all for you. For both of you.”
“You know you don’t have to be so poetic with me, I’m already yours, you’ve already wooed me.” You tease.
“Then let’s go home.” He whispers. You smile as you leave your room, sneaking out the back entrance until the two of you are walking hand in hand across the courtyard and into the trees.
a/n : did a classic bks all nighter for this and im so tired, the edit was done through weary eyes lmao, feel free to lmk if there's any glaring issues
i no longer have a tag list!! follow @lincolndjarinnotifs for updates!!
pairing : bodyguard!Din Djarin x afab!princess!reader
rating : 18+ mdni
word count : 11.7k
summary : a plan to finally leave Naboo is set in motion.
warnings, etc. : language, smut, angst, canon typical violence, allusions to sexual assault, threatened sexual assault (a guy threatens reader, and is gross), vomit (reader pukes once, it isn't described in detail), oral f!receiving, p in v, creampie, din's breeding kink, teasing, orgasm delay, probably other things i missed sorry
a/n : genuinely sorry about how long this took, it's been a pretty rough month for me and it's been hard to focus, especially when i'm also trying to keep up with kinktober, i promise in november. my upload schedule will do back to normal. i've sort of been dreading writing this chapter for a long time just because i've known how i've wanted it to go for so long and i just wanted it to be right, double apologies bc idk when the next chapter will be out because it's gonna be a double release but i will keep everyone posted. also i super rushed the edit on this so like if there's a big glaring error feel free to message me about it.
comments and reblogs are appreciated !!
Four days of Leo.
You were upset that Din was leaving you but you got over it rather quickly with the promise of his hasty return.
The morning he’d left you’d gone back to bed, you couldn’t think of anything to do without him so you just slept, dismissing the girls when they came to dress you. Your makeshift bed is colder than ever as you toss and turn for a few minutes before finally rising. You managed to find a dress that wouldn’t require much assistance to put on, stepping into it before leaving only to find Leodall waiting outside your door.
“Can I help you?” You give him a perplexed look as he clears his throat.
“I’ve been tasked with protecting you while the Mandalorian is away.”
What the hell is Leo supposed to do if you’re in danger?
“Is this Kodo’s doing?” You fight back the frown that threatens to form on your face.
“No ma’am. The Mandalorian instructed me to keep an eye on you.”
Bastard.
Of course he didn’t tell you Leo was going to be watching you while he was gone, he knew you’d be livid, which you are. You know better than to fight this, Leo’s terrified of Din, he’ll do whatever he asks of him. With a sigh you begin to make your way to the library, hearing his flustered steps behind you.
You don’t want to be stuck with him in the library all day so you simply grab a handful of books before making a hasty return to your room. Much to your chagrin, he follows you in, keeping a watchful eye on you as you read.
He does all sorts of nonsense.
He sweeps, and dusts, and fusses. Nothing is ever clean enough for him. You tell him it’s fine dozens of times but he just won’t stop insisting. He takes the sheets off the bed to be washed despite you telling him you don’t even sleep there.
His orange complexion goes damn near white when he discovers that you’ve been sleeping on the closet floor. You explain to him with as much patience as you can muster that nothing he can do will stop you from sleeping in there and you find a compromise where he thoroughly washes every single blanket, sheet, and pillow while you try not to scowl at him.
And he won’t stop talking.
He doesn’t seem to take the hint. You can sigh and groan as much as you want to when you look up over your book at him but he just keeps going.
The only time he goes silent is when you have to attend dinner with your husband. Leo accompanies you as Din would, standing behind you as you take your seat at the dining hall table.
Kodo looks… tired?
You’ve seen plenty of emotions on that smug face of his, but exhaustion? Never.
“Let’s make this quick.” He doesn’t even look at you as he takes a swig of whatever’s in his mug. You don’t grace him with a verbal response, just a nod and a hum as you take a sip from your own glass, hoping the water will soothe your nerves.
They don’t even bring out any food as he writes something down, shuffling through the papers in front of him.
“I don’t have a lot of time today…” He finally looks up at you, there are bags under his eyes and you can’t help but wonder what’s gotten to a man who seemingly cares about nothing. “Let’s get started, shall we?” He sits up a little straighter, giving you that smile you’ve grown to hate more than anything else in this castle. “My father is ill.”
“I’m so sorry, my prince.” Your sympathies are emotionless, you don’t remember what his father is like. If he’s anything like the rest of his relatives you’re certain you wouldn’t care for him.
“Don’t be, this is a good thing.” Of course his father’s sickness would be a positive to him. “They’ve already transferred many of his royal duties over to me.” Hence the exhaustion. “This is a very good thing, wife. You could be queen by the end of the month.” Your stomach lurches at the thought.
Being queen means making heirs.
“How wonderful.” You stare at him, really taking him in for the first time in a while. Maybe it’s just because you know exactly how ugly he can be but right now you have to wonder how anyone considers him attractive. You don’t even know what Din looks like but you know that purely based on his actions that he’s more attractive to you than this.
“I don’t have much else for you, you are excused.” You blink at him a few times as he says it before shooting a confused look at Leo who looks as puzzled as you.
“You don’t want to have dinner?” You try to not sound excited at the idea of leaving already as he nods.
“I already ate.” He’s already ignoring you all over again, his eyes back on his work as he waves you off.
So you go back to your room, smiling the entire time.
You read, you eat when Leo brings you food, and you sleep.
And that’s the routine.
For nearly a week that’s what you do.
You wake, you let Leo in when he knocks, you deal with it when he fusses, and you sleep.
But really what you spend most of your time doing is missing Din.
You miss the way he smells, and the way he balances you out. It feels like you’re missing an integral part of yourself, you’ve grown so accustomed to his constant presence and the sudden lack of it is jarring. He made the castle feel like home and without him it returned to its former glory, a prison.
☆
Just as promised he returns, you’d hoped it would have been sooner but you’re just happy he’s back. You’d assumed the moment you laid eyes on him that you’d jump his bones immediately, but all you could think about was just how happy you were to see him.
You just want to be with him.
So you do just that.
And you take care of him, because it makes you happy to care for him the way he does for you. You don’t ask him about the trip, you know he’ll tell you about it when he’s ready.
In the morning you hold him tight, and you tell him what you were told at dinner. That the king is sick, and you both know what that means.
Despite the looming darkness, the morning is relatively normal after that.
Until you get to the library.
He’d been staring at you for some time and you were just about to ask if he was okay when he spoke.
“Do you know what riduur means?”
Spouse.
You’d seen it in the book while he was away. You’d focused on learning words that would most likely be relevant to your life with him.
“No, I don’t think I learned that.” You’re mostly just curious if he’ll actually tell you.
“It means partner, or spouse.” He sounds nervous, it makes your heart skip a beat.
“Oh. Okay…”
He nods and you can’t help but be disappointed at his lack of followup. You try not to stare, keeping an eye on him as you return to your own book, in your peripherals you can see that he doesn’t even try to pretend to read, he’s just staring at you again. You get ready to shut your eyes when he starts playing with his helmet controls but he doesn’t remove it, instead he takes your face in his hands.
“Can I ask you something?” There’s no modulation as you hear his raw, unfiltered voice. His thumbs rub small circles into your jaw.
Is this happening? Now? Or is he joking around again?
“Of course.” You’ve been ready since the first time you thought this was happening.
“Do you remember when I described the fear of love to you?”
Definitely not a joke.
“Yes.” You couldn’t possibly forget it, you still feel it everyday.
“Do you ever feel that fear?”
Every single second of every single day.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want you to.” He releases your face, taking your hands in his instead. “I don’t want to either.”
If he’s about to break up with you again you’re gonna kill him. You might actually push him out the window, he’ll be fine, he has his pack.
“I don’t want our lives to be that. I want to leave, soon.” You sit up in his lap, the nook is a mess of tangled limbs and fabric from the skirt of your gown at this point. “B- but I want us to do something before we leave.” He’s usually so put together when he talks to you like this. Slow, well calculated words, but he’s stuttering a bit now, his voice nearly cracking as you give his hands a reassuring squeeze.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He repeats, nodding to himself before the helmet tilts up with a whisper of your name, it’s the first time you’ve heard your real last name and not Harand, in a long time. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” You really do.
“I have lived my entire life in hiding, behind masks and walls.” He takes your hand, bringing it to the lip of his helmet as he takes your fingertips, bringing them under it to hold them to his lips. “I can’t, and I won’t do that forever. I have said it before and I will say it again, I have no secrets from you.” Are you holding your breath? The tightness in your chest makes you feel like you are. “And you deserve a much more profound proclamation of devotion but I’m worried that if I try to do that I’ll lose my nerve. So instead I’ll just say it, and I’ll spend the rest of my days after this showing you just how devoted I am.” He reaches under his cowl, producing a small chain from around his neck, he fiddles with the clasp for a moment before holding it out towards you. Two silver rings hang from the chain. “Sarad’ika, let me spend the rest of my days with you.” He sets the rings in your hand.
You’re briefly waiting for formal words but you realize those aren’t coming. This is more than a marriage. This is an oath to each other, a permanent bond of devotion.
“Of course.” You whisper, closing your hand around the bands before swiftly removing his glove, pulling him to your lips to place a kiss to his palm. “Of course, Din.”
You stare into that thin black visor, the both of you just taking a moment to take each other in. And for a brief moment you get a glimpse of the life you could have together.
A chance at something real.
Freedom.
A house.
A family.
“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde.” He murmurs, barely above a whisper.
“What’s that mean?”
“Mandalorian wedding vows. I can teach them to you if you’d like.”
“What does it mean?”
"We are one when together, we are one when parted, we will share all, we will raise warriors."
You want him to take the helmet off.
You’ve never felt such a strong urge to be face to face with him, to really truly see him in this moment. To know him and to be known.
“And I want you to look.” He voices your own thoughts as he brings your hands to his helmet and you lean forward on instinct, pressing your forehead to the cool steel. You stare at the beskar mask. You’ve spent so much time wondering what lies beneath it but now you know that you don’t care, you imagine him as you’ve felt him beneath your hands. You tumble forward, wrapping your arms around his neck.You lift his helmet just enough to kiss him, to feel that warm familiar heat against you.
“I want to do it soon, I don’t want to wait any longer.” He murmurs once his helmet is properly situated once more.
“Absolutely.”
“One week from today. Elaine and I will plan everything and we can leave that night.” A week?
“So soon?”
“It’s for the best.” You settle against his chest so you’re staring out the window at the palace grounds. Just holding each other for a few minutes until you finally speak.
“It’s silly, but I actually think I’m gonna miss this place.”
“Really?”
“Not this place specifically, I won’t miss this far too large castle, and I won’t miss the arranged marriage of it all, but I’ll miss all the other parts.” You twist around in his arms to face him. “I’ll miss Lysa and Elaine, and the cabin, and being here, in the nook.” His grip on you tightens in an attempt to bring you comfort. “I’m really going to miss the people.” You are suddenly aware of just how fond you’ve become of the people of Naboo. You truly love and care for your subjects and a part of you is going to miss them terribly.
“I’m sorry.” He truly sounds apologetic.
“Don’t be. None of it compares to you, Mr. Djarin.” You don’t want him to dwell on any sadness you may have because none of it compares to how badly you want to spend the rest of your life with him.
“Whatever you say, Mrs. Djarin.” He mimics your tone.
“You can’t call me that yet.”
“But it suits you.”
☆
You wear your ring like he does. On your necklace. He keeps his on the thin silver chain and you keep yours on the cord with the silver flower charm.
You have one full week to prepare.
Din assures you that he’ll take care of all the logistical parts of your escape, he says he’s got a plan and you leave it at that, trusting him to handle it. You make yourself a five day schedule.
Day one, which is today, your engagement day, you will spend packing and gathering whatever you wish to take with you, you both agree to each take one bag and nothing else to make things as easy as possible.
Day two, Elaine is going to fit you for a gown while Din finishes his preparations for your departure.
For your third day you’ve convinced Din to take you into the city to say goodbye. You want to see the markets and you want to see the people, one last time.
On day four, you will have to attend your final dinner with your current husband.
And on day five you will be married. Elaine supposedly knows a pastor who works in a chapel just at the edge of the castle grounds. She has told him that the Mandalorian wishes to wed a servant girl, when the sun sets you will meet him there, your face concealed and just like that, you’ll be wed.
When he explains it to you it all seems so simple but actually making it through the week is much harder.
You don’t pack any clothes, Din says you’ll just get new ones when the two of you find somewhere to settle. You plan on wearing a simple tunic and pants, you’ll change after the ceremony and you’ll have your honeymoon once you’re safe and off planet.
You’ve been wearing the necklace Din got you for a while now you don’t have to worry about that. Otherwise you don’t honestly have many belongings. You grab a few books from the library you’ve been meaning to read, tucking them into the canvas bag he brought for you. You pack a blanket and a few pieces of jewelry you think might be valuable before buttoning it shut, handing it off to Din to be tucked away in the cabin.
You can’t help but feel like you’re forgetting something but you push the thought away.
That night, when you’re laying with Din in the closet you hold the rings up together, staring at the intricate detailing in a way you haven’t gotten a chance to do yet. You rest your chin on his chest in the dim lamp light as you watch the way the flickering bulb reflects off the silver.
The outsides are rather pretty, matching patterns of swirls and vines, miscellaneous flowers adorn the band. The insides are different though, both carved with the same word you vaguely remember from your book.
Riduurok
It represents a love bond.
The difference is specifically that yours has a very small carving of a mudhorn, a sigil you recognize from his armor, while his is engraved with a flower. A piece of each of you.
“They’re beskar.” He says softly. His helmet resting on your bare chest.
“Like your armor? Isn’t this only supposed to be used on Mandalorians?” You drop his ring and focus back on your own.
“They make exceptions.” He yawns, he still hasn’t fully recovered from the exhaustion of his trip and you wonder if he slept at all when he was gone.
“Is this why you left? To get these?”
“Not just anyone can forge beskar, I needed to seek out an old friend to do it.” He adjusts himself a bit, fiddling with his helmet.
“They did a beautiful job.” You close your eyes as you say it, hearing his helmet hit the floor and his face taking its place against you as he lays back down.
“She always does.” He reaches over, turning the lamp off.
“Why a mudhorn?” He laughs when you ask, rolling over so he’s on his side, still holding you.
And before you fall asleep, he tells you a story.
In the morning Din leaves you with a kiss on the forehead to go handle the final preparations of your departure while Elaine arrives with her seamstress kit and bundles of white fabric.
You want your own dress for this.
Not one of the ones tailored to you and paid for with Kodo’s money.
She takes your measurements in silence, her face contorted in concentration as she notes everything. From the looks of it, she already has a good portion of the dress finished.
It’s gorgeous.
Pale, sheer fabric lined with dainty little dots. The skirt is layered, flowing freely when she pins it against your figure, fitting it to you perfectly.
“Elaine… this is beautiful, when did you find the time to make this?”
“I started it a while ago, I hoped you’d like it.” She smiles and it feels almost normal. Like two friends just looking out for each other.
“I love it, thank you, I don’t know how I’m going to repay you for everything you’ve done.”
“You’ve done enough just by being kind to me, princess.” He manages to speak clearly even when she’s holding pins between her teeth.
“Please, you don’t have to call me that, call me by my name.”
And she does.
When she finishes the dress you have to fight back tears, not just because of how wonderful of a job she’s done, but because of the sentiment of it all.
“Will you come to the wedding? You and Lysa?” You take her hands in yours, as you stare at yourself in the mirror, white lace falling off your shoulders in beautiful layers.
“If you’d like.”
“Nothing would make me happier. You give her hands a squeeze and she helps you out of the gown, after about an hour Din returns from his day spent finding you passage off of Naboo, laying down beside you in the closet, you’re in only your undergarments since you didn’t bother changing after Elaine was done.
“I missed you.” He mumbles as he crawls across the sheets towards you.
“You always miss me.” He just laughs when you sit up on your elbows to smile at him.
“I got us a ship.” He murmurs, you barely get a chance to cover your eyes before his helmet is off, his mouth on yours as he climbs on top of you.
“Where’s it taking us?” You gasp out when he finally pulls back, tugging at the latches on his armor as he sits up on his knees.
“Wherever we want. It’s a cargo ship, making multiple stops throughout the outer rim, we’ll be able to get off whenever.” You listen, eyes still shut, counting as each piece of armor is set on the floor until the last one is off.
“What about our great escape? What’s the story?” His knee slides between your legs as he crawls back on top of you, holding himself above you so you have to strain your neck to kiss him.
“The princess ran off on her own volition. She was unhappy for a long time and finally couldn’t take it anymore.” He pulls back just enough that you can’t find him without your sight, whining as you slump back against the pillows. “Elaine will spread whatever rumors she needs to to make it true.”
“What about her loyal Mandalorian bodyguard?” You reach up, opting to just pull him down to you instead of trying to find him yourself.
“He was embarrassed, ran away with his tail between his legs because he accidentally lost the princess.” He lets you pull him against you, his face finding a place under your jaw, his stubble brushing against your neck as he does.
“Didn’t realize he was such a coward.” You let out a breathless laugh as his chin brushes against a particularly ticklish part of your throat.
“Apparently he was a real baby about that kind of thing.” You feel a soft bite emphasizing his words as his teeth graze your skin.
“What a shame.”
“Truly.” He ends the back and forth when his mouth dips between your breasts, licking a strip of the skin there before sliding lower. “Do you have any other plans tonight?”
You just cleared your whole schedule.
“Nope.”
“Perfect, I thought we could do some married couple practice?” He lifts your legs up, resting them on your shoulders as he presses several tender kisses to your thighs.
“Married couple practice?” You’d do just about anything he wanted you to right now as long as he doesn’t stop what he’s doing.
“Well we’re gonna be married in just a few days, we should probably practice.” There’s a brief shuffling as he tosses his gloves aside before hooking a finger on your panties, you’re waiting for him to tug them down but instead you just hear a few rips and feel his breath against your mound.
“I don’t exactly get what that entails…” Your words are shaky as he runs his thumb along the crease between your thigh and your cunt.
“Well I was thinking all day, you know, while I was busy missing you.” He finally puts his mouth on you and it’s barely enough. His fingers spread you open as he leans forward, placing a single chaste kiss onto your clit that makes you jump a bit.
“Of course.” Your voice pitches up a bit.
“And I was thinking about how I’d probably come back here and we’d talk a little like we normally do, and then we’d probably have sex like we normally do.” He still doesn’t put his mouth on you, you just feel his breath against you, making your pussy ache and your clit throb.
“So far so good.” Are you even speaking loud enough for him to hear you?
“But then I realized that we’re gonna be married soon, so I thought we should probably start acting like it.” He leans forward just enough for his nose to bump against your clit.
“Yeah?” Your hands tangle in his hair in an instant.
“Yeah. You know, typical married people things, I ask you how your day was, you tell me it was fine, and then we have boring married people sex.” He tilts his head to the side a bit, just enough to relieve any of the pressure against your core as you try desperately to pull him into you.
“What is boring married people sex?” You ask, strained and breathless.
“You lay on your back and I do my thing until I finish inside you, because married people have kids, that’s what they do.” Finally, finally, his tongue drags along your seam before dipping into your weeping hole, your back arching as you groan.
“Obviously.”
“You probably won't finish, I’m pretty sure that’s part of it.” He mumbles against you before pressing his tongue deeper into you.
“Well that doesn’t seem fair.” Your eyes are squeezed shut as he works you open, slowly, your cunt leaking as he laps at whatever he can.
“Marriage is all about compromise.” He pulls back, a little breathless himself now before wrapping his arms around your legs, nuzzling his face between your legs before wrapping his lips around your clit, leisurely sucking until you can’t hold back the obscene moan that forces its way out of you.
“How is that a compromise?” You finally manage to grumble through your haze, the coil in your stomach tightens just as he comes up for air, resting his head on your thigh.
“I don’t know, it just is- dank farrik- missed you- your taste.” His own voice is nearly as needy as your own as he leans back down into you, his tongue swirling around that little bundle of nerves until you feel like you're about to explode.
“Being married… sounds awful.” Your chest heaves and your thighs tighten around his head as he sinks two fingers into you, briefly pulling back with a small gasp.
“We’ll make it work.” He curls his fingers, chuckling when you tighten around him.
“Maybe that’s the compromise.” You muse as he flattens his tongue against your clit.
“Making it- making it work?” You’re so fucking close, if you could just get him to stop talking and focus you’d be able to finish.
“Yeah, maybe the compromise is making boring married sex work for both of us.” You stammer again, desperate for him to just send you over that edge.
“I suppose we could try that.” He flicks his tongue against you one last time before withdrawing his fingers, you whimper the moment he does. “Are you going to come?” He knows exactly what he’s doing, and that you are. You nod with a breathy whine and he pulls back entirely, sitting up.
“If you want me to marry you you better stop whatever it is you’re doing.” You spit the words out quickly, desperate to pull him back in.
“If you want to come you better not make jokes like that.” He teases but you know he’s incapable of denying you anything.
“Fine, fine, just- come here.” You hold your arms out towards him and he eagerly crawls back into them, slotting himself between your thighs as he spreads your legs wide to accommodate him. You arch your back and shift your hips to the best of your ability, trying to get some kind of relief against him but he pulls back just enough to prevent it.
“How was your day?” You can feel his grin as he leans down, kissing along your jaw slowly as you paw at his chest.
“It was great, wonderful.” You gasp out as you feel him drag the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in the abundant wetness there.
“Now ask me about my day.” He notches himself at your entrance, not pushing in just yet but enough to make you squirm in an attempt to take matters into your own hands unsuccessfully.
“I’m gonna kill you.” Your voice is already ragged and strained at this point but when he still doesn’t move you sigh. “How was your day?” The moment you finish your sentence he pushes into you in one smooth motion, burying himself to the hilt with a groan from both of you.
“It was fine.” He mumbles before almost immediately finding a rhythm, pumping himself inside you with deep deliberate thrusts. His forehead presses against yours as he lets out a breathy whine.
This certainly doesn’t feel boring.
He takes hold of your hips, raising them slightly so he can angle himself to slam against your g-spot, twisting your body until you let out a particularly strained moan and he knows he’s found it. Your brain is already mush just from the sheer speed at which he started fucking you, giving you no time to adjust, so all you manage to mumble is his name.
“You- you want me to fill you up? He rasps out.
You nod for a moment until you remember the darkness that you’re both in and you manage to find your voice.
“Yes, please.” Your hand slips between your legs as you begin to rub slow circles into your clit but he takes your wrist and slowly pulls it away.
“I- I wanna see if- if you can come just like this.” He stammers out as he continues jackhammering into you, purposefully pushing himself into your g-spot as your walls flutter around him.
“Din…” You whine but he just keeps at it.
“I bet you can, I bet you’ll come when I do, when I fill you up, when I’m spilling out of you.” Your head is spinning from the repeated stimulation as he continues to focus on that sweet spot until you’re both falling apart. He’s exactly right. He comes first, snapping his hips forward until he’s nestled against your cervix. And when he’s done he slowly fucks his cum deeper into you, reveling in the lewd wet sounds and it only takes a moment more before you finish as well, gasping and strangling his cock as you clamp down on him.
When your breathing settles he turns onto his side, holding you against his chest before mumbling a sleepy I love you, so much. The two of you have been laying in silence for quite some time when you finally speak up.
“You know, married people sex is subjective.”
“Hmm?” He hums softly.
“Any sex we have after we’re married is married people sex, because we’ll be married people.”
“Mhmm.” He sounds like he’s barely awake but you just keep going.
“I don’t know why you assume it has to be boring.”
“Mmhm.” He continues to hum against your chest, a low rumble.
“Do you spend all your time away from me coming up with over complicated ways to put a baby in me?” You finally blurt out with a laugh, rubbing his back as you do.
“It worked, didn’t it?” He finally sits up a bit and speaks, his voice is heavy with exhaustion.
“Maybe I spend all my time thinking about the same thing and you just make it really easy for me to get what I want.” You’re still laughing softly.
“Does that mean you want to have more boring married people sex?” The fatigue in his voice dissolves quickly.
“Only if you stop calling it that. We aren’t boring married people and we are never going to be. We’re just going to be married people.”
“Mmm, I can make that work. Do you want to have more married people sex?” He starts to sit up on top of you again but you put a hand on his chest, pushing him so he’s laying down on his back.
“Absolutely I do.” You straddle his hips before reaching out into the darkness to take his face in your hands.
☆
Today is the only day you’ve woken up sad since Din proposed.
Today you have to say goodbye to your favorite part of Naboo, the people. When you wake he’s already dressed, attaching the last of his armor before helping you up.
“I thought you might want to leave early, so we can spend as much time in the city as possible.” His voice is still thick with sleep as you get to your feet.
You tell Leo to bring you as many coin purses as he can before you leave and he returns with five rather hefty bags of credits that Din slips into his bag before you head out. You go through the usual process, bracelet and all the other hubbub before you begin your walk through the streets.
There’s a dull ache in your chest as you look around at the people. Your people.
The thought of never seeing them again, and never getting a chance to really help them. If you were queen you could do something about all of this, but you can’t stay long enough to do such a thing.
So you settle for this.
You hand out credits to anyone who will take them, saving a bag for Vivian's family. You embrace anyone who will let you, and you hold the hands of everyone you give credits to. And once four bags are empty you go to Vivian’s store and you play with Theo, and even though she protests for the better part of an hour you give her the fifth coin purse. And when the sun starts setting you hug her.
And you fight the urge to say goodbye because it doesn’t matter how much you trust her, no one can know that this is your last time visiting the city.
When you leave the store it’s clear how upset you’re becoming about all of this so Din takes you to the markets just as the sunsets and you get to see the changeover. You can’t technically go to the Lunar Markets without your cloak, it wouldn’t be a good look for a princess to be wandering through such a taboo place, but you stand just outside the first street and you watch all the lights flicker on.
Each string light going on at its one speed, dazzling flashes of light all dancing through the air until the entire street is illuminated.
It’s beautiful.
Yet you don’t feel better.
You just feel sad. Because you’ll never get to see it again.
So you walk, quietly with Din, back towards the castle.
“You’re upset.” His voice fills the silence almost immediately as you walk the empty street back.
“A bit.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t do anything. I’m royalty, I should have helped these people when I had the chance to.” You sigh, resting your shoulder against his.
“You did the best you could.” It sure doesn’t feel like it.
“And it still wasn’t enough.”
“You did more for them than any other member of the royal family has done in decades.” You have to fight the urge to take his hand in yours after that.
“You always know what to say.”
“Aren’t you that bitch from before?” A voice breaks through the small moment of peace and you and Din both turn quickly to see a vaguely familiar face. “Didn’t realize that you were royalty, doesn’t seem like much of a guard for a princess, one guy.” He nods at Din who immediately steps in front of you, silent.
You squint, trying to recall where you know him from when two other men step out from a nearby alley, flanking him. That’s when it clicks.
You recognize his welding goggles. And his greasy black hair.
He had accosted you many moons ago, in the market, Din had knocked him flat on his ass for it. Din takes a few steps in their direction, deliberate and deadly. It doesn’t matter how capable you know he is, you still don’t like the sight of him going up against a group of three.
“Look man, this doesn’t have to be a problem, we’ll even pay you for just a couple minutes with her.” The one you recognize quips and you feel sick at the insinuation.
“I’ve never been with a princess.” His friend on the left sneers and you instinctively take a step back. That’s all it takes to send Din over the edge though, you don’t even see the first hit, he moves so quickly. You just see the guy on the left hit the street, a gush of blood shooting out from his nose.
The other two hop into action immediately after, both standing with their arms held up defensively but it does them no good.
The one on the right is stupid enough to strike first, his fist hits beskar and he stumbles back with a yelp. Your eyes go wide when Din kicks his legs out from under him, he follows the first man as he hits the ground, his head knocking against the stones, in an instant he’s out cold.
You gasp at the suddenness of it all.
The one with the goggles loses all his bravado in an instant, he turns and you’re sure he’s about to run but he doesn’t get the chance, Dins hand wraps around his throat and he’s on the ground beside his friends, except he isn’t as lucky as his friends because the Mandalorian doesn’t relent. He boxes him in with his legs as he kneels, his fist slams against the other man's face repeatedly and your ears fill with a sickening crunching sound.
In all honesty you aren’t worried about anyone but Din right now, it isn’t just the man's face that’s making the breaking sounds, it’s his fist as well.
You rush over to them and put your hands on Din’s shoulders, he stops immediately before turning to look at you, his shoulders relax immediately and he reaches for you but he winces when he wraps his hand around your arm.
“Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” He whispers softly and you nod.
“It’s okay, but we should go.” You rub his back a bit as he stands.
“I just need a second.”
“Okay. You nod, watching as he leans down, whispering something in the barely conscious man's ear, you don’t catch a word of it but when he’s done he stands and you both begin walking back towards the castle.
☆
“I’m okay, I promise.” He groans as you usher him into the cabin. You’ve been fussing over him the entire walk back.
“Being married means not lying about this kind of thing.” You snap back at him as you open the door.
“I’m not lying, trust me, I’ve had much worse.” You know it’s true but that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to worry.
You frown, having him sit at the kitchen table as you carefully pull his gloves off, both knuckles are jagged and bloody.
“Kriff… do you have a first aid kit?”
“I promise, sarad, it’s fine.”
“Marriage means compromise.” You glare at him as he sighs and you cross your arms in front of your chest.
“Fine. In the fresher, there’s a loose board in the cupboard, pull it back and bring me the case that’s in there.” You cock an eyebrow at him before hurrying off to follow his instructions and sure enough you find it, a small metal case. You return to the main room, setting the box down on the table, watching as he fumbles with the lock. He flips the lid open before sliding the box over to you. Your jaw goes slack as you stare at several vials of bacta.
“Why do you have so much of this stuff?” You cringe at the memory of having to apply the sour substance to your split lip.
“For emergencies, which by the way, this is not.” You grab one of the vials as he gestures at his hands, uncorking it and dipping your finger into the slimy liquid before taking his hand in yours, applying a thin layer to it, watching the blood slowly mix with the bacta in crimson swirls.
“You’re hurt, this is an emergency.” He just sighs, letting you do your work, not even wincing one as you do so. When you’re done you recork the vial before putting it back in the case and returning it to its hiding place.
“Thank you.” He whispers when you come back to him, kneeling in front of the chair and helping him out of his armor as he keeps his hands on the table.
“What was that?” You grin up at him as he sighs again.
“Thank you.” He says a bit louder.
“You’re welcome.” You take the last of his armor off before standing. “Now come on, let’s lay down.” You wrap an arm around his waist as you walk to the mattress, helping him down as you keep his hands away from the sheets before laying down beside him, resting your head on his chest. You lean over and flip the lamp off before settling in beside him.
“Did you have a good day?” He whispers against you as you lay your head on his shoulder.
“I had a sad day, but it was still good.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that.” He mumbles in the darkness, his tone quickly turning to one of shame. .
“What? The fight? You were just doing what you always do, you were protecting me.” You let your fingertips roam across his chest in small circles in an attempt to soothe him.
“I should’ve- I shouldn’t have snapped like that. You shouldn’t have seen me like that.”
“Hey. I want to see you like that. I want to see all the parts of you, not just the pretty ones.” He doesn’t respond, and for a moment you have to wonder if you’ve upset him, but then you feel his chest rise and fall sharply a few times. Your hands fumble around until you find his face, the apples of his cheeks are a bit damp as you run your thumbs across them.
You aren’t really sure what to say. So you just go with what you know will make him understand just how okay everything is right now. It hasn’t been an easy week so far for either of you.
“I love you.” You whisper before leaning down to kiss him, your mouth thankfully finding his. “And I can’t wait to marry you.” You lay back down and feel his arms tighten around you, after a few minutes his breathing steadies out and you know he’s okay.
“I love you too.” Is the last thing you hear before you both fall asleep.
☆
One last dinner with Kodo and then you never have to see him again.
That’s what you keep reminding Din as he tries to convince you it isn’t necessary, to which you remind him exactly what happened last time you didn’t attend dinner. Not that you aren’t just as worried as he is, of course you are, you’re just internalizing it better. Most people probably spend the day before their wedding stressing, it’s only natural.
So that’s exactly what you do today.
You stress.
You pace, and you stress until the sun is setting and Din is trying to persuade you one last time into not going which you ignore before the two of you walk the familiar trail to dinner.
You never know what to expect when you walk into the dining hall, but today you couldn’t be more pleased to find Kodo positively swamped. With his fathers condition worsening a fair amount of his royal duties now fall under his son's jurisdiction. He doesn’t look at you or Din when you arrive and you’re thrilled when you see they didn’t set the table for dinner. The entire room is silent save for Kodo scribbling something on a piece of paper, when you go to sit he raises a hand and you stop dead in your tracks.
“No need to sit, this will be quick.” He stands and you feel a sudden urge to stand behind Din, to put something between you and Kodo but you resist. “My fathers condition is worsening, that is the only news I have now I must be off.” He snaps and a servant helps him put on his coat as you watch in stunned silence, he shoots you one last glance before walking out the door. “That will be all.” And just like that he’s gone. When the door shuts behind him you can’t help but burst into a fit of laughter purely spurred on by your disbelief as Din walks you out of the room.
It was just that easy.
You’d spend hours stressing today and it was that kriffing easy.
You’re grinning ear to ear when you turn to Din once you’re safe and out of the dining hall.
“We never have to do that again.” Your voice and excited whisper.
“Never.” He repeats, you can practically hear his own smile.
“Can we go home now?”
“Home?” He looks behind him before wrapping an arm around your waist.
“Sorry, the cabin.”
“I still haven’t fixed the bed frame you know.” He’s still walking you in that direction as he says it so you just laugh.
“That’s okay, I don’t mind.”
“Then let’s go home.”
And that’s exactly what you do. And when he opens the door to let you in you realize with a profound sadness that this is your last night in the cabin. A place that is the closest thing you have to a home here on Naboo, besides Din. But he’s a person, not a place. This is your home. His home. You can’t help but wonder if the sorrow is getting to him too, leaving is hard, no matter how much you hate certain aspects of this planet there will always be parts that you love.
But you don’t want to be sad the night before your wedding.
So you do your best to clear your head.
“Aren’t we supposed to spend the night before our wedding apart?” You tease as you kick your shoes off, eager to just go to sleep, turns out spending all day being worried is exhausting.
“Why would I want to do that?” He’s taking his own armor off, turning to glare at you.
“I don’t know, tradition?” He helps you out of your dress and you quickly climb into bed.
“That’s not my tradition.” He lays beside you and you on the mattress, groaning as he kneels to crawl in beside you.
“Lights off?” You whisper as your fingers trace the edge of his helmet.
“On?” His voice is soft and hopeful and you smile before promptly closing your eyes, the action is swiftly followed by the sound of his airlock. He kisses each of your eyelids before your lips, pulling you into him completely.
And he loves you like it’s the last time he ever will.
He makes every time feel like the first time with how gentle he is with you, even when he’s being rough. There’s always the tiniest spark of tenderness to him.
But tonight is different.
Tonight he loves you like he’s loved you his entire life.
It isn’t another first time, this time feels like the thousandth, like he knows your own body better than you do. Like he still loves it even after all this time. His hands can’t hold enough of you, his mouth can’t savor enough of you, and his cock can’t fill enough of you. He chases more and more, wanting only to make you happy, to unravel you and wind you up just so he can do it all over again.
However you want it.
That’s what he says when you climb on top of him, sinking down on his length with a groan. So you do it exactly how you want it, which is every way. He takes whatever you give him and you give him whatever he wants. And when he gasps in your ear the single word, posed as a question, inside? You nod, pulling his face closer to kiss his cheek.
“You don’t have to ask, you can just do it.” You murmur, and he does.
A part of you knows just how reckless that is but it matters less now that you’re leaving. Any children who would be born from this union no longer have to live in fear of your current technical husband, because they won’t be anywhere near him by the time they’re born.
So you let yourself stop being afraid of that possibility.
And you let Din love you.
☆
Today’s the day.
Your day.
It feels perfect already, the sun shines in through the small windows, you’re still tangled in each other when your eyes flutter open. Based on the way his breathing sounds you know his helmet is still off so you shut your eyes, letting your head rest on his chest as you relax against him for a few more minutes.
It’s going to be a hard habit to break after today.
Not looking.
Shit.
By the end of today you’ll have seen him. You’re meeting him at the chapel before the sunsets, and you’ll be off planet before morning. And in between that you’ll look. You’ll know every part of him.
You feel him stir, his breathing picking up just a little as he lets his hand wander up and down your spine.
“Good morning, sarad.” He murmurs, leaning down to kiss the top of your head.
“Morning.” You kiss his collar bone, squeezing whatever parts of him you can get your hands on. “What time do we have to start getting ready?”
“Lysa will help you get ready and Elaine and I will set up the church. We have to explain our circumstances to the pastor.”
“Like tell him that your bride is married?” You groan, just wanting to stay in bed with him.
“Like tell him I’m marrying some random servant girl, but more importantly tell him no one will see your face during the ceremony because of the creed.”
“Is that a real thing?” You sit up a bit, remembering to keep your eyes shut just in time.
“Not at all, but he doesn’t know that.”
You pull each other close, your movements synced as you do.
“Are you ready?” His tone is light but you know that if you said no right now he wouldn’t be bothered, he’d wait. It’s a good thing you’re more than ready.
“I have been for quite some time.”
The two of you stay like that for quite some time, for as long as you can actually, until Elaine is banging on the cabin door. When that happens you both sit up quickly, Din helps you dress and in just a few moments you’re both ready.
The next time you see him will be at your wedding.
You both stand by the door, unopened, when he takes your hand.
“I love you.” He brings your hand to his chest as he says it.
“Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum.” You do your best with the pronunciation, trying to mirror how he says it.
“I will know you forever.” He whispers out and you tilt your head to the side. “That’s what that means. It’s our version of I love you, but it means I will know you forever.”
You squeeze his hand on last time before dropping it and lifting his helmet just enough to kiss him once.
“I will. I have big plans to know you forever.” You smile at him one last time before opening the door, Elaine and Lysa waiting outside.
☆
After Lysa walked you back to the castle things were a bit of a whirlwind.
It was a long arduous process, she insisted on making you perfect one last time. Her sentiment made your heart clench so you allowed her this, considering it a parting gift, one last day staring into the vanity.
She spends the day getting you ready in every way possible and you spend the day missing Din.
Until she gets to your hair and you finally speak up.
“Can we leave it down?” You clear your throat and turn to her as she nods.
“Of course.”
Despite how much time Lysa has spent dolling you up you’re happy to look in the mirror and see you. Clear as day. Not some unrecognizable woman being dressed to the sake of her husband, you just look like you.
When the sun is finally beginning to set outside your window she helps you into your dress.
Elaine really outdid herself.
It’s simpler than some of your other gowns but it’s exactly what you wanted. The dress isn’t wearing you, you’re wearing the dress. You’re standing in the full length mirror when Lysa produces your veil, helping you clip it into your hair so your face will be completely concealed.
“It’s time to go.” She whispers as she adjusts your dress once, smiling gently at you.
“Could I have a minute alone?” You whisper back before she nods and rushes out, shutting the door silently behind her.
You lift the veil and look around the dimly lit room for what will be the last time. Your hand subconsciously wanders up your necklace, you twist the ring hanging there between your fingers as you open the closet door, flipping on the lamp to stare at the bed you’ve made.
You sort of wish you could bring it with you. Your little blanket bed. But you know better than that. As much as you’re going to miss it, after today you’ll have a real bed. A shared bed, with your riduur.
So you say a silent goodbye to this bed. Your first shared bed. And you leave to find Lysa.
☆
You know the plan by heart.
Lysa will walk you in. It’ll be a quick ceremony and then you will get your things from the cabin and leave.
Simple.
Easy.
The church is nestled in the woods, only a few servants ever attend but it’s a quaint little place, covered in vines as you stand outside the large wooden entryway. This is it. You will walk out of this church married to a man you actually love. Just as the sun hits the horizon you know that’s your cue to enter. You take Lysa’s arm, holding her close as she pushes the door open. You’re holding your breath as you look around the church, waiting to lay your eyes on him.
Empty.
You tense up, your grip on Lysa tightens immediately as you both step inside.
Completely barren. Not even a pastor.
“They must be running a little bit late.” You can tell by the tone of her voice that she is just as uneasy as you are right now.
Din wouldn’t be late.
Not to this.
“Let’s wait a few minutes, they’ll be here soon.” She insists before walking you into the church, you both sit in one of the pews.
You wait.
And you hold her hand and you wait.
You wait until the sun is completely set and you’re both bathed in darkness before you can’t take it anymore and you stand abruptly, pulling the veil from your hair and handing it to her.
“Go back inside, hide this, I’ll take care of this.” You walk with her back to the entryway with small frantic steps.
“Ma’am, are you sure-”
“I’ll find them.” You give her a reassuring smile, one that brings you no comfort before watching her rush back in the direction of the castle. The moment you know she’s far enough away to not hear it you finally let out the sob that’s been building in your throat. You don’t have time to break down right now though, you need to find Din.
He didn’t abandon you.
Your mind wants to go there, a part of you whispers that he’s left you all over again but you know with absolute certainty that that isn’t possible.
Something happened.
So you search.
Your heart threatens to burst from your chest as you begin your hunt.
You go to the cabin only to find it just as you left it this morning. You wade through the waters, silently letting your eyes scour the darkness before you run through the gardens. Yet you come up empty once again. Not so much as a trace of either one of them.
So you go to the only other place you can think to look.
The place you had told yourself just a few hours ago that you’d never go back to, and you return to the castle. It’s desolate when you search the halls. Not so much as a guard in the dark stone corridors. It makes your stomach twist in knots. The rooms are empty, and the lights are off.
What the hell happened?
Your lungs burn from the constant running but you can’t stop now, you won’t stop until you find him, and if you search every corner of the castle and he isn’t there then you’ll start searching the rest of the planet.
Whatever it takes.
It probably won’t come to that though, you quickly realize when you finally find a room with the door cracked and the lights on. Any sense of relief it brings you is gone in an instant though as you realize what room it is.
The dining hall.
Your feet carry you towards it before your brain can comprehend what’s happening and you slowly push the doors open, stepping inside. You have felt a range of temperatures since your arrival on Naboo but right now all you feel is a blistering cold that smothers your flesh and bones.
The table is set, and as is the case on all nights where you’re expected at dinner, Kodo sits in his usual place.
Except this isn’t a night where you’re expected.
And he isn’t the only one sat at the table.
Elaine sits on one side of him, looking like she’s about to be sick, Leo on the opposite side, downright refusing to look at you. You feel like you’re going to pass out the moment you see them and you can’t help but note the fact that Kodo’s guards aren’t here.
“Don’t you look lovely.” The nasally bellow of his voice fills the entire hall as you take a step forward. It takes all of your focus to keep yourself from trembling as you stare at him.
“Did I forget we were supposed to have dinner?” You keep your voice surprisingly steady considering the circumstances.
“You didn’t get my invitation?” His voice drips with malice as the doors behind you promptly shut, his tone is enough of an indicator that there was no invitation.
This isn’t some coincidence, you didn’t just happen to stumble upon Elaine and Leo dining with your husband, no.
It’s an ambush.
“I must have missed it.” You murmur.
“Take a seat.” He says it like it’s an offer but you know better than to refuse, not now. You sit at your usual spot, every muscle in your body is tense as you look across the table at him. “Tonight was supposed to be a celebration.” His face contorts into a sneer as he stares right back at you. “But I’m afraid our night has been ruined by some rather upsetting news.”
Maybe you should just run.
His guards aren’t here, you could probably outrun Kodo, especially with how much adrenaline is coursing through your veins right now.
Not without Din.
“Are you okay?” He doesn’t sound concerned, the question burns a hole into you, what could he possibly mean by that?
“I’m fine.” You swallow the lump in your throat, turning to look at Leo, and then Elaine, Kodo following your eyeline the entire time.
“Don’t worry, she can’t hurt you, not anymore.”
“I’m sorry?” The more confused you get the more the feeling of suffocation in your chest grows.
“Your servant, she can’t hurt you anymore, I was actually about to dismiss her right before you arrived.” Your brows furrow as you try desperately to make sense of any of this and he grins. Teeth fully on display as he smiles at you from across the table. “You don’t know?”
“I’m sorry, my prince, but I’m not sure about anything that’s happening right now.” Might as well say it, maybe it’ll get you some answers.
“No need to apologize, not after what you’ve been through.”
You know better than to ask a follow up question to that.
Something is terribly wrong and it would be best to learn as much as you can before giving away any of your own knowledge.
“Leodall told us everything.” If it’s possible for Leo to somehow look at you less, he manages to do so when Kodo says that. “You don’t have to worry about any of it now, I’m going to take care of everything.” Nothing about the faux soothing tone he takes on relaxes you, you’re getting more and more upset with each passing second.
“What did Leo tell you?” The bewilderment in your voice isn’t an act as you fight to keep your voice from cracking.
“About the Mandalorian, dear wife.”
It’s a good thing you weren’t holding a drink, if you did it would be on the floor. You don’t have anything to say, any words you might have to say die in your throat.
“We retrieved him from his quarters and he confessed to everything.” Kodo’s eyes raise briefly as he gauges your reaction.
Din confessed.
“Everything?” When you find your voice that’s the only word you can manage to produce as your stomach churns at the thought. What did they do to him to make him admit what the two of you have done?
“It’s better this way, there’s no need for a trial.” He takes a sip of whatever dark ale fills his glass. Maybe your last act of defiance should be to aim the vomit rising in your throat at him, or at the very least at Leo. “Thank the gods Leo found that book, who knows how long this would have continued if it weren’t for him.”
The Smitten Paladin.
You knew you were forgetting something.
Maybe there isn’t enough time to run but you could definitely jump across the table and strangle Leo, it probably wouldn’t even be that difficult.
Or maybe you should just beg.
Kodo is a man of ego, if you appeal to him maybe he’ll spare Din. That’s unlikely though, the best you can hope for now is a swift death for both of you. Should you just beg for that instead?
“I confessed as well, to all of it.” Elaine turns to stare at you, she looks pained and Kodo’s smile drops the moment she speaks up.
“There’s no need for that.” He hisses, his chair squeaks as he stands but she isn’t deterred.
“The Mandalorian and I both confessed to our crimes, I’m sorry.” Elaine is strong. The entire time you’ve known her that’s been the word you’d use to describe her, but right now she just looks small.
“That’s enough.” His voice rings through the hall as he snarls at her. “You’ve done enough.” But she doesn’t stop, tears form in the corners of her eyes as she reaches a hand towards you.
“Mando told them what he did.” Her words become more and more rushed as Kodo begins to walk towards where she’s seated. “We told them all of it, what he made you do, how I helped him keep you quiet, how he took advantage of you.” Her voice is strained and broken as the loud crack echoes throughout the room when Kodo’s hand comes in contact with her face.
“Not another word.” He growls, his eyes icy and cruel, his hand still raised in silent warning.
How he took advantage of you.
Oh Din.
He didn’t.
You just stare at her. The weight of the world is starting to crash down on you bit by bit as your heart begins to beat frantically.
Kodo sighs loudly before returning to his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“You’ve ruined the big reveal.” He mumbles before looking back up at you. “Might as well get to your present since she’s ruined the surprise.”
This can’t get worse.
That’s what you’ve been consistently repeating to yourself as this dinner has carried on yet somehow it does.
Everything gets worse when Kodo calls out for his guards.
Six battle droids enter from the door behind Kodo, but you barely have eyes for them, you don’t have the brain capacity to notice them because you only see him right now.
Your Din.
Din who would do anything for you. With his hands cuffed in front of him, his ankles attached with a short chain. Din who is pushed to his knees, a man who should never be in such a position before anyone who isn’t you. Din who only looks at you, even now.
Din who made up a lie, to protect you one last time.
Your Din.
There isn’t a facade you can put on now, nothing can hide the anguish on your face as you stare at him, you aren’t exactly proud when it consumes you entirely.
And you vomit.
The tension in your chest finally bubbles over and you expel the contents of your stomach onto the table. Nobody moves, only you, hands gripping your chair as your chest heaves. You’re vaguely aware of Kodo standing beside you now, he’s speaking but you don’t hear a word, you only hear a ringing in your ears until you look at Din, who nods at you, just once, and everything comes back into focus.
“He can’t hurt you.” Kodo’s voice is sickly sweet in your ear as he hands you a handkerchief from the table set up, giving you a moment to wipe your mouth as you fight back the urge to be sick all over again. “His restraints are state of the art, it doesn’t matter how much of a fight he puts up, he isn’t getting out of them.”
Your brain is trying desperately to come up with some genius plan to get all of you out of this but you're coming up empty.
There is nothing.
“I’m thinking guillotine.” Kodo’s voice is a whisper now as he bends down to speak to you.
“You do public executions on Naboo?” Your voice matches his in volume, but your eyes never leave Din, he’s struggling against them, but six battle droids? It wouldn’t matter if it was six Mandalorians.
“I’m the king now, I can do whatever I want.”
“Tonight was supposed to be a celebration.”
Oh.
“Defiling the queen is considered an act of treason in my eyes, so yes, it will be a public execution for these two.” He points at Din and then Elaine and at this point you have a headache as you try desperately to make the pieces of this demented puzzle fit together. You take a shuddering deep breath.
Leo found the book.
He told Kodo.
Kodo had Din drawn and quartered. He would have been with Elaine, she was taken as well.
He told them he took advantage of you.
That he defiled you.
So you would be guiltless.
And Elaine corroborated his story.
Said she helped him.
They had saved you.
And now they’re going to pay for it.
“Why don’t we see the traitor’s face, guard?” Kodo’s voice tears you from your mental gymnastics as he snaps, pointing at Din and you can’t help it as you shoot up to be standing.
“No!” The word is punched out of your chest, all the air leaving your body with it.
“No?” Din stops struggling as everyone turns to face you now, Kodo’s question rings throughout the room as you try to come up with something, anything, to stop this.
“You wanted to surprise me? Then we should wait, we should save the reveal.” Your words are rushed, you will do anything to keep that helmet on his head right now.
“The reveal?” Kodo hisses.
“No one’s ever seen his face, we shouldn’t waste this opportunity on some random dinner.” Is this even worth it? At this point you’re probably just getting yourself killed.
Now no one speaks. You finally manage to tear your eyes from Din to turn and face Kodo.
“We should save it.” You whisper, you don’t even care if this gets you killed, you just want to keep his helmet on his head until you can figure out how to keep his head on his shoulders.
Kodo’s sneer turns into a smirk.
“What a good idea.” You let out the breath you’d been holding in. “Maybe you aren’t completely bland, wife.” He puts a hand on the small of your back and you manage to keep yourself from recoiling. “Well then, I think we’re done here.” He whistles, once, clear and sharp and a pair of guards take Elaine by the arms, dragging her away but not before you manage to shoot her one last look of gratitude for what she’s done for you.
You finally look back at Din.
Thrashing against the hold that the droids have on him until they yank him up into a standing position.
What you wouldn’t give to be able to say anything to him, even just a single word.
“You don’t have to worry about him anymore sweet wife, it’s over.” Kodo’s words are hot and vile against your ear as he puts a hand on your shoulder, hovering over you as you watch Din being dragged out of the room.
He puts up one hell of a fight, one final reminder of just how strong your Mandalorian is, it takes all six of Kodo’s droids to keep him down.
You don’t like the sight of it.
There’s something fundamentally wrong about Din being overpowered.
You manage to swallow down the sob that threatens to rip through you as you get one final look at him as the doors slam shut, you fight the urge to recoil when Kodo leans down to plant a kiss on the top of your head.
“Your little nightmare is over.” He mumbles, his voice filled with an underlying joy.
It’s just started.
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Summary: When your grandmother leaves you a house outside Austin, you spend years saving to turn it into the family home you've always dreamed of. Then your marriage falls apart before the paint is even dry.
As the renovation progresses, Joel Miller finds himself watching a woman build something beautiful while the life she planned quietly slips away. The smart thing would be to stay out of it. Unfortunately, Joel has never been particularly good at that.
Pairing: Joel Miller / f!Reader (no physical description).
Rating: E.
Tags/warnings: No outbreak AU. Cheating (referenced). Toxic relationship. Fluff. PiV sex. Creampie.
Word count: 16.7k words
a/n: So... this is the first thing I've writing in like months that I don't think 100% sucks... I hope you guys like it. See you next week with the next part of The Right Life :)
The house had somehow become the topic of the evening. Every family gathering over the last few months had eventually circled back to it. The renovation was finally about to begin, which meant everyone wanted updates on paint colors, flooring samples, contractors, budgets, and a hundred other details that had consumed your life for the better part of a year.
You didn’t really mind. The house was your dream house. It sat on a few acres just outside Austin, with a wide front porch and enough room for everything you’d imagined your future family might need someday. After your grandmother left it for you in her will, you’d spent years saving for the renovation to update it and make it just perfect, and now that it was time, every decision felt important.
Unfortunately, most of those decisions seemed to belong exclusively to you.
“…and if we move the wall back another foot, we’d have room for a bigger island.”
Your sister leaned forward immediately. “Oh, definitely do that.”
Across from you, your aunt disagreed. “No, don’t. Bigger isn’t always better.”
A chorus of opinions followed.
You laughed, shaking your head before turning toward your husband. “What do you think?”
For a second, he looked up from his phone.
“The island.” You smiled. “Should we make it bigger?”
His attention flicked briefly toward you, then back to the screen. “Whatever you want, dear.”
The answer arrived so automatically that you weren’t even sure he’d processed the question.
Around the table, several people smiled. Your aunt gave an exaggerated sigh. “See? That’s what I need.”
A few heads nodded in agreement.
“What?”
She pointed toward your husband. “That. A man who doesn’t argue about every little thing.”
More laughter spread around the table.
“Seriously,” your cousin agreed. “You’re lucky.”
The word lodged somewhere behind your ribs. Lucky. Your husband was already scrolling again, his attention gone before the conversation had even moved on.
“He lets you do whatever you want,” your aunt continued. “If I told my husband I wanted to knock down a wall, he’d spend six months debating it.”
Everyone seemed amused by the idea. Everyone except you.
You managed a smile because it was easier than explaining. Easier than saying that being ignored wasn’t the same thing as being supported. Easier than admitting that you would have welcomed an argument at this point. An opinion. A preference. Anything that suggested he cared about the life the two of you were supposedly building together.
The wall layout was yours. The flooring was yours. The appliances were yours. The paint colors were yours. The furniture was yours. Sometimes it felt as though the entire dream belonged to you alone.
Your cousin was still talking. “I swear, if mine let me choose everything, I’d be thrilled.”
You gave a small laugh at the appropriate moment. Nobody noticed how tired it sounded… Because from the outside, it looked wonderful. You had a beautiful house. A husband who never fought you on decisions. A future everyone assumed was taking shape exactly the way you’d planned.
You glanced across the table again. Your husband’s gaze remained fixed on his phone. Whatever was happening there clearly held more interest than discussions about the home you’d spent years dreaming about.
For a moment, a thought surfaced that you immediately tried to push away. If you sold the house tomorrow, would he even care? The question unsettled you enough that you reached for your wine glass. Of course he would… He had to. This was your future. Your marriage. Your home.
Yet as the conversation flowed around you and your husband continued scrolling through his phone, you found yourself wondering when he’d last sounded excited about any of it… You couldn’t remember.
The realization lingered long after dinner ended, following you all the way home, where the plans for your dream house sat neatly organized on the kitchen counter. You stared at them while your husband disappeared upstairs without a second glance.
*******
Monday arrived with the kind of nervous excitement that had kept you awake half the night.
The renovation had been planned for so long that it hardly felt real anymore. For months, the project had existed as sketches, samples, measurements, and endless decisions. Now there were trucks in the driveway, equipment being unloaded, and actual walls that were about to come down.
You stood on the porch with a mug of coffee wrapped between both hands as a pickup rolled to a stop. The driver’s door opened first. Joel climbed out, already carrying a folder under one arm. You’d met him three times before this. Once when he’d come out to measure the house. Again when he’d spent nearly two hours walking through every room while you explained what you wanted. And a third time when you’d signed the contract after interviewing several different companies and somehow finding yourself trusting his judgment more than anyone else’s.
Tommy emerged from the passenger side a second later. “Morning.”
“Morning.”
A grin spread across his face as he looked at the house.
“Still standing.”
“Barely.”
“Good. Gives us something to do.”
You laughed.
The crew began unloading tools while Joel crossed the driveway toward you.
“You ready?”
The question made you glance back at the house.
“No.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Good answer.”
“Ask me again in six months.”
“Then you’ll tell me no for different reasons.”
“Probably.”
He nodded toward the front door.
“Let’s take one last look before everybody starts making holes in things.”
Together, you headed inside.
Within minutes, plans were spread across the kitchen island while crew members moved in and out carrying equipment.
“Okay, so this wall is coming down.”
You pointed to the blueprint.
“And I’d like the opening a little wider than we originally discussed. Not much. Maybe another foot.”
Joel studied the drawing.
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
Relief immediately softened your shoulders.
“Really?”
“Mm.”
He looked toward the wall in question.
“Might require moving one electrical line, but I’d rather do that now than have you regret it later.”
“Exactly.”
The front door opened. You looked up automatically.
Mark came downstairs while buttoning the cuff of his shirt, laptop bag hanging from one shoulder. He made it halfway into the kitchen before slowing. His eyes moved from you to the plans spread across the island. Then to Joel. Then Tommy. Then to the crew carrying equipment through the house.
“Oh.” A faint frown appeared. “Today’s the day?”
The words hit harder than they should have.
Your smile faltered for the briefest moment. “Yeah.”
For a second, he looked genuinely surprised. “Right.” One hand ran through his hair. “Sorry. I completely forgot.”
Nobody said anything. Joel’s expression remained neutral. Tommy suddenly seemed fascinated by the tape measure in his hand.
You forced a small laugh. “It’s okay.”
And maybe it should have been. People forgot things. Work got busy. Life happened.
Except this wasn’t a dentist appointment or a dinner reservation. This was the renovation. The thing you’d spent months talking about. The thing you’d discussed over breakfast, over dinner, while watching television, and lying in bed at night. The thing that seemed to occupy half your thoughts. Yet somehow he’d forgotten it was starting today.
Mark stepped closer to the island. “So what’s first?”
The question sounded sincere. That almost made it worse.
You pointed to the plans. “We’re opening this wall up.”
“Huh.” He looked at the drawing for a few seconds before nodding. “That’ll look nice.”
Joel glanced down at the plans. “She’s thinking about widening the opening another foot.”
Mark followed the line on the blueprint. “If that’s what you want, sounds good.”
“Really?”
“Sure.” A smile tugged at his mouth. “You’ve spent way more time thinking about this house than I have.”
The comment wasn’t meant to be hurtful. Everyone seemed to take it as a joke. You smiled too. Mostly out of habit. Because the truth was that somewhere along the way, ‘you’ve got better taste than me’ had become ‘you decide’.
And ‘you decide’ had eventually become ‘I don’t need to be involved’.
Mark checked his watch and muttered a curse under his breath. “I’m late.”
You weren’t surprised. He usually was. He grabbed his travel mug from the counter before turning toward Joel.
“Sorry I’m disappearing on day one.”
“We’ll still be here tomorrow,” Joel replied.
That earned a brief laugh. “Fair.” Mark adjusted the strap of his laptop bag. “My office is down the hall.”
Joel nodded.
“We’ll seal everything off before demolition starts.”
“Appreciate it.” Mark pointed vaguely toward the hallway. “Just don’t fill the place with drywall dust. That’s where I hide during conference calls.”
Tommy chuckled. Joel smiled politely. You did too. Then Mark stepped toward you. The kiss landed on your forehead. Automatic enough that neither of you had to think about it.
By the time he pulled away, he was already reaching for his keys.
“See you tonight.”
“Bye.”
The front door closed behind him. A few moments later, his car disappeared down the driveway.
The kitchen grew quiet enough that you suddenly became aware of how warm your coffee mug felt in your hands.
You looked back down at the plans.
“So.” Your finger moved to another section. “I was thinking about adding pull-out shelving in the pantry.”
Joel followed the line of your finger.
“That’s a good idea.”
“If you’ve got the space, you’ll use it,” Tommy added.
You smiled. The knot that had settled in your chest eased slightly.
Outside, someone started up a saw. The renovation had officially begun. And although you couldn’t have explained why, it felt strangely easier to think about pantry shelves than the fact that your husband had forgotten the day your dream house finally started becoming real.
****
Joel had renovated houses for most of his adult life. Some projects stayed with him. Most didn’t. You tore out a wall, replaced some flooring, updated a kitchen, collected a check, and moved on to the next job. After a while, the houses blurred together.
This one should have done the same. Instead, three months later, Joel could have walked through the entire floor plan without looking at a single blueprint.
He knew where every electrical line ran, which floorboards creaked in the hallway, and exactly how many times you’d changed your mind about cabinet hardware before finally settling on a choice. The fact that he knew that last detail at all was something Tommy found endlessly amusing.
“You know that’s weird, right?”
Joel continued checking measurements. “What is?”
“The fact that you know more about this woman’s house than your own.”
Joel didn’t bother looking up. “That’s called doin’ my job.”
“Mhm.”
“It is.”
Tommy leaned against a stack of drywall with the expression of a man who was enjoying himself far too much.
“You got opinions on her pantry.”
“I got opinions on everybody’s pantry.”
“Sure you do.”
The problem was that Tommy wasn’t entirely wrong. There was something unusually satisfying about this project, and a lot of that came down to you.
Most homeowners cared about the end result. Very few cared about the process. They picked things because they were trendy, expensive, or because somebody on television had told them they should. You thought about things. Every decision had a purpose behind it.
The expanded pantry wasn’t about resale value. It was because you’d grown up in a house where storage always seemed to be in short supply. The reading nook beneath the front window existed because you’d always wanted one. The larger kitchen island wasn’t there because it looked impressive in a magazine. You wanted enough space for family dinners, holiday baking, and the life you imagined unfolding inside the house years from now.
You were building a home, not a showroom. Joel respected that. More than he probably should.
Living through a renovation wasn’t easy, yet somehow you’d managed to stay remarkably cheerful through most of it. Every morning, you emerged from whichever corner of the house wasn’t currently being demolished, coffee in hand and plans already forming in your head.
By the second month, you’d become part of the crew’s routine. Not literally, nobody would ever mistake you for a contractor. But there was rarely a day when you weren’t standing beside Joel discussing measurements, paint samples, shelving options, or whatever new idea had occurred to you overnight.
Unlike many homeowners he’d worked with, you actually listened when he explained why something wouldn’t work. If he suggested a better solution, you considered it instead of treating every recommendation like a personal challenge. It made the entire project easier. Unfortunately, Tommy had noticed. Which meant Joel never heard the end of it.
One afternoon, you appeared in the doorway carrying a folder of flooring samples while Joel was finishing trim work in the living room.
Tommy saw you first.
“Oh, there she is.” Joel kept working. “You gonna pretend you weren’t wondering where she’d gone?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Joel.”
“I wasn’t.”
Tommy’s grin widened. “You’ve looked toward that hallway six times in the last ten minutes.”
Joel considered several responses, but none of them would improve the situation. So he kept working while Tommy laughed himself into a near collapse against the wall.
The crush irritated him. He was far too old for this nonsense. More importantly, you were married. That should have been the end of it. Yet every week seemed to provide another reason for him to like you.
The fact that your husband was a fucking idiot only made everything worse. Mark wasn’t openly rude. Joel would have understood rude. What he couldn’t quite understand was how detached the man seemed from a project that consumed so much of your life.
Over the months, he saw him often enough. Most encounters lasted only a few minutes before work pulled him elsewhere, but every interaction left Joel with the same impression: Mark occupied the house, you lived in it. There was a difference.
One evening, you’d spent nearly half an hour debating countertop samples spread across the temporary folding table serving as your kitchen. After eliminating option after option, you’d finally pointed to one of them.
“Mark likes the darker one.”
Joel looked up. “He does?”
You smiled. “Yeah.” The answer sounded obvious to you. “He picked it.”
And for reasons Joel couldn’t entirely explain, that surprised him. Because it was one of the first times he’d heard your husband express a strong opinion about any part of the renovation.
The realization stayed with him longer than it should have. Maybe because it reminded him that marriages looked different from the inside than they did from the outside. Maybe because it was easier to be annoyed with a stranger than admit he didn’t actually know anything about your relationship. Still, the feeling lingered.
Not that Mark was necessarily a bad husband. Just that whenever something exciting happened in the house, you seemed to experience it alone.
The worst part was that the renovation itself wasn’t helping. Every week transformed another section of the house. Walls disappeared. Rooms opened up. Light reached places it hadn’t before. The home slowly became what you’d always imagined, and every time a new stage was completed, your face lit up with the same excitement you’d had on the day demolition began.
Most people eventually stopped noticing the work. You never did. You noticed every detail, every improvement, every inch of progress. And every time you smiled at something you’d dreamed into existence months earlier, Joel felt an unreasonable amount of satisfaction.
One evening, after you’d spent twenty minutes enthusiastically discussing the built-in bookshelves before finally heading upstairs, Tommy waited until you were out of earshot.
Then he looked at Joel. “You got it bad.”
Joel sighed. “Would you shut up?”
“Nope.” Tommy’s grin only widened. “You’re building her a dream house.”
“I’m building a house.”
“You remember what kind of cabinet handles she picked.”
Joel immediately regretted responding… Because Tommy’s expression brightened with victory.
“There it is.”
“Tommy.”
“The woman changes her mind one time and you remember every detail.”
“Three times.” The words escaped before Joel could stop them. Tommy stared at him. Joel closed his eyes. “Damn it.”
The laughter that followed echoed through the unfinished living room while Joel seriously considered whether homicide between brothers was still illegal in Texas.
******
Joel had spent most of the afternoon installing shelving in what would eventually become the mudroom. It was the kind of work he liked. Simple. Precise. Something he could focus on without having to think too much.
The rest of the crew had already left for the day, leaving only the sound of a drill, the occasional thud from upstairs, and the distant hum of the air conditioning struggling to keep up with the Texas heat.
He heard your voices before he registered the words. At first, he paid no attention. Couples argued. It wasn’t his business. The house echoed more than usual with half the walls still exposed, which meant conversations carried farther than they normally would.
Joel reached for another screw and deliberately turned on the drill. The noise drowned everything out for a few seconds. Then it stopped… And so did the argument. For approximately three seconds.
“What do you want me to say?” Mark’s voice carried clearly from the kitchen.
Joel closed his eyes. Damn it. He reached for a measuring tape. Focused on the shelving. Focused very hard. Unfortunately, the house had other plans.
“I don’t want you to say anything.” Your voice sounded strained. “I want you to give a shit.”
Mark laughed. A short, frustrated sound. “Seriously?”
Joel picked up a hammer. Anything loud. Anything.
“You got exactly what you wanted.”
The hammer stopped halfway through a swing.
“You picked the layout.”
Thunk.
“You picked the cabinets.”
Thunk.
“The flooring.”
Thunk.
“The countertops.”
Thunk.
“What more do you want?”
The hammer suddenly felt ridiculous in his hand. Because even over the noise, he could hear the hurt in your voice.
“That’s not even the point!”
“Then what is the fucking point?”
Joel stared at the unfinished wall in front of him.
The conversation should have ended there. Instead, it shifted.
“You don’t give a damn about any of it!” The words emerged quieter this time, which somehow made them easier to hear. “You barely know what’s happening in your own house!”
He heard a sharp exhale, and then Mark again. “Jesus Christ. The fucking house isn’t the problem.”
The sentence hung in the air.
When you spoke again, your voice sounded thinner. “It isn’t.”
Joel wished very badly that he couldn’t hear this.
“I can’t keep doing this.”
The words came from Mark. Firm and final. Silence stretched between you. Then you answered.
“You mean the baby?”
Nobody spoke. The quiet that followed felt heavier than the argument itself.
Finally Mark sighed. A long, irritated sound. “Yeah.”
You laughed once. A sharp, disbelieving sound. “Are you serious?”
“Completely.”
Joel heard movement. A chair scraping against the floor.
“I think we need to stop.”
“Stop trying?”
The words came out flat. As though he were discussing a subscription service. Not the thing you’d spent years hoping for.
“Jesus Christ, Mark.”
“What?”
“What!?” Your voice rose. “You don’t get to drop that into a conversation like it’s nothing!”
“I’m saying it’s adding stress that we don’t need.”
The answer came immediately. Like he’d rehearsed it. Joel’s grip tightened around the drill in his hand.
“Stress?” You sounded stunned.
“Yes. Stress.”
“Mark, you’re barely even here!”
“Oh, fuck off.”
Joel closed his eyes.
“Seriously.” Your voice cracked. “You’re gone constantly.”
“I work.”
“You disappear!”
“I work!”
“No!” The answer came fast and certain. “You leave before I wake up, come home after I’ve gone to bed, cancel plans every other week, and somehow you’re standing there telling me that trying for a baby is what’s stressful?”
The kitchen fell silent.
Then Mark laughed. “You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Turn everything around.”
Joel heard footsteps. Closer.
“You want to know what’s exhausting?” Mark continued. “You never let anything go.”
“Excuse me?”
“This.” Mark gestured. Joel could hear it in the movement. “This conversation.” His voice rose. “Every conversation.”
“You brought it up!”
“Because somebody has to!”
Your voice shook. “We could have talked about this.”
“We are talking about it.”
“No, Mark.”
Joel had never heard you sound like that before. Hurt.
“Talking would’ve happened six months ago.” Silence. “Talking would’ve happened before you started avoiding me.”
The words seemed to hit something. Mark’s voice hardened immediately. “I am not avoiding you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You barely even touch me anymore!”
The kitchen became so quiet Joel could hear the hum of the refrigerator. When Mark answered, his voice came out sharper than before.
“Because every damn thing turns into this!”
Your breath caught. “What does that even mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.” His frustration finally spilled over. “You know what? I’m just sick of it.”
“Sick of what??”
“Tired of everything revolving around a baby.”
Joel shut his eyes.
“Everything? Mark, we’ve barely even tried for a few months! You’re almost never here to try anyway!”
Silence.
“You’re just twisting everything, again.”
“Mark-”
“No.” He cut you off. “You want the truth?” The house seemed to shrink. “I can’t do this. You’ll make this the center of your entire life, just like you did with the house.”
The words were cruel. Joel knew it. The moment they left Mark’s mouth, he knew it. And judging by the silence that followed, so did you.
When you finally spoke, your voice sounded small. “I want a family.”
“I know.”
“With you.”
Something shifted. Something ugly. Because Mark didn’t answer immediately.
Joel found himself staring at the unfinished wall in front of him. Waiting. And when Mark finally spoke, his voice carried none of the softness that sentence deserved.
“Well, maybe it’s time to accept that you can’t get everything you want.”
The silence afterward felt endless. A moment later Mark appeared in the hallway. Joel barely had time to straighten before he walked past.
Your husband looked immaculate. Pressed shirt. Expensive watch. Laptop bag over one shoulder. The image of a successful professional heading off to another meeting.
He didn’t seem embarrassed or upset. Didn’t even seem to notice Joel standing ten feet away.
“See you tomorrow.”
The words were tossed over his shoulder toward the house in general. Then he was gone. The front door slammed. A car engine started.
Silence settled again. This time it stayed.
Joel stood motionless for several seconds. Part of him knew he should keep working. Another part knew he should leave. Instead, he found himself glancing toward the kitchen. Just once.
You were standing on the opposite side of the island. One hand braced against the countertop. The other pressed against your stomach. Your eyes were closed. And judging by the way your chest rose and fell, you were concentrating very hard on breathing normally.
Joel looked away immediately. Not because he didn’t care. Because he did. Far more than he should.
He stared at the shelving in front of him and tried to focus on the measurements. Three and a half inches. That was the gap he was supposed to be checking. Three and a half inches. For some reason, the number refused to stay in his head.
What stayed instead was the sound of your voice when you’d said with you.
Joel had gone into plenty of homes over the years. He’d seen marriages at their best and marriages at their worst. Couples fought over budgets, timelines, paint colors, and things that made no sense to anyone except the people involved. This hadn’t sounded like that. This sounded like a woman trying desperately to save a conversation while her husband was already halfway out the door.
The realization sat heavily in his chest. He hated it. Hated that he’d heard any of it. Hated that he was thinking about it at all. And most of all, hated the flicker of anger that rose every time he remembered Mark’s voice.
“Maybe it’s time to accept that you can’t get everything you want.”
Jesus Christ. Who said that to their wife? Who said that and then grabbed their car keys and left? Joel dragged a hand over his face. None of it was his business. That was the important thing. Not his marriage. Not his wife. Not his life.
The thought should have settled the matter. It didn’t. Because when he finally risked another glance toward the kitchen, you were still standing there exactly where he’d left you, gripping the edge of the island as though it were the only thing holding you upright.
Joel didn’t think twice and walked in, stopped beside the plans spread across the island.
“Question.”
You looked up. For a brief moment, he could still see the argument written across your face. Not tears. Something harder than that. The effort it was taking not to cry. Then your expression smoothed into something more neutral.
“What?”
“The mudroom cabinets.”
It wasn’t a complete lie, but it wasn’t exactly urgent either. Joel already knew the answer before he asked.
“The ones near the garage?”
“Yeah.” He flipped open his notebook and glanced down at it as though he were checking measurements. “If we shift them over six inches, we’d have room for a bench.”
Your attention immediately dropped to the plans. “A bench?”
Joel nodded. “For shoes.”
You frowned thoughtfully and studied the drawing for a few moments, following the measurements with your finger. “Could we still fit the storage cubbies?”
“There’d be enough room.”
“Huh.”
The silence that followed felt different from the one he’d walked into. Lighter.
You leaned over the plans. “That’d actually be useful.”
Joel shrugged. “Thought so.”
And just like that, the conversation shifted onto safer ground. For the next several minutes, the two of you discussed bench dimensions, coat hooks, storage cubbies, and whether the bench should extend all the way beneath the window. None of it was particularly important, but that was precisely the point.
Sometimes normal conversation was a kindness.
Eventually, a small laugh escaped you. “I can’t believe we’re spending this much time discussing where people put their shoes.”
Joel snorted. “You’d be surprised.”
“No, seriously.” You pointed at the plans. “We’ve spent at least twenty minutes on this.”
“Closer to forty.”
That earned another laugh, this one sounding a little more genuine than the first.
The tension in the room eased almost imperceptibly. You still looked tired, and whatever hurt Mark had left behind hadn’t disappeared, but for the first time since he’d walked into the kitchen, you looked like yourself again.
Joel closed the notebook. “Anyway, I’ll move it over.”
You nodded. “Okay.”
He had almost reached the doorway when your voice stopped him.
“Joel.”
He turned back. “Yeah?”
The gratitude on your face was subtle enough that somebody else might not have noticed it. Joel did.
“Thanks.”
You didn’t explain what you were thanking him for. He didn’t ask. Because the bench wasn’t really the point.
“Don’t thank me yet.” A faint smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “You haven’t seen my coat hook ideas.”
You rolled your eyes immediately. “Oh, God.”
“That’s what everybody says.”
The sound that left you this time was unmistakably a laugh.
When Joel left the kitchen a few moments later, the argument was still there. Nothing had been fixed. Nothing had been solved. But you weren’t standing alone at the island trying to remember how to breathe anymore, and for the moment, that felt like enough.
************
The house kept getting better. That was the strange part. With every passing week, another piece of it fell into place. Fresh paint replaced exposed drywall. Cabinets appeared where there had once been empty framing. Light fixtures went up, floors were finished, and the kitchen that had existed for months as measurements on paper finally began looking like the room you’d imagined from the beginning.
The house was becoming beautiful. You weren’t.
The realization crept up on Joel gradually enough that he almost missed it at first. Living through a renovation wasn’t exactly relaxing, and he’d spent enough years in construction to know that homeowners often looked worn down by the end of a project.
For a while, he told himself you were simply tired. Then he assumed work must be busy. After that, he stopped trying to explain it away. The months kept passing. You kept looking worse.
The dark circles beneath your eyes grew more noticeable with every week, and there were mornings when it looked as though you hadn’t slept at all. You still smiled. You still thanked people. Every now and then, you still brought coffee for the crew or got excited about some new detail that had finally been completed. The difference was that the excitement never seemed to last.
Joel noticed it most in the moments when you thought nobody was paying attention. The second a conversation ended, your shoulders would sag slightly, as though holding yourself together required more effort than it used to. Sometimes he’d glance up from his work and find you staring out a window or into space, your expression distant enough that he wondered where your thoughts had gone.
Meanwhile, Mark appeared less and less.
At first, Joel assumed your schedules simply weren’t lining up. The man worked long hours and traveled often enough that missing him for a few days wasn’t particularly unusual. Eventually, though, Joel started realizing entire weeks could pass without seeing him. Maybe that was normal… Maybe it wasn’t.
What Joel knew for certain was that the house was nearing completion, and most people in Mark’s position would’ve been counting down the days. Instead, he seemed almost entirely absent from the process.
One afternoon, Tommy climbed down from a ladder, stretched his back, and glanced toward the driveway.
“Haven’t seen Prince Charming in a while.”
Joel continued measuring trim without looking up. “Mm.”
Tommy snorted. “That’s my professional observation.”
“Good thing nobody pays you for your observations.”
“They should.”
Joel rolled his eyes and returned to work.
The truth was that he’d noticed too. He just preferred not to think about it. Because every time he did, he found himself looking toward you. And every time he looked toward you, he saw somebody trying very hard to convince the world she was fine.
The house, meanwhile, had become something special. Even Joel had to admit that.
The reading nook beneath the front window had turned out exactly the way you’d envisioned it. The kitchen felt open and welcoming without losing its warmth. The built-in shelves stretched beautifully across the living room wall, and the mudroom bench had become one of Joel’s favorite details despite Tommy mocking him relentlessly for caring so much about a bench.
Months earlier, the place had been a construction site. Now it looked like a home. The kind people dreamed about. The kind people imagined raising families in. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Especially not lately.
One afternoon, Joel arrived earlier than most of the crew. The house was unusually quiet, enough so that he initially wondered whether you’d already left for work.
Then he stepped into the living room. The new sofa had been delivered a few days earlier and sat facing the fireplace, surrounded by furniture that was finally beginning to make the space feel lived-in.
You were sitting there alone. A thick folder rested open in your lap. Although your eyes were fixed on the pages, it didn’t look as though you’d turned one in a while.
For a moment, Joel considered backing out of the room. Something about the scene felt private. Then you looked up. The movement was slow enough that it almost seemed as though you’d forgotten somebody else was there.
And Jesus. You looked exhausted. Not the kind of tiredness that disappeared after a good night’s sleep. The kind that settled into a person’s bones and stayed there.
Joel frowned before he could stop himself. “You alright?”
Your gaze dropped back to the folder. For a second, he expected the usual answer. A smile. A joke. Some variation of ‘I’m fine’.
“Not really.”
The honesty of it surprised him enough that he took another step into the room. His eyes flicked toward the folder.
“What is it?” he asked.
Your fingers tightened around the folder. For several seconds, you didn’t answer. Joel remained where he was, close enough that walking away would have felt strange, far enough that it didn’t feel like he was intruding. The silence stretched between you while your eyes remained fixed on the papers in your lap.
Then you let out a laugh. Not because anything was funny. The sound escaped you the way a sigh might.
“Mark left.”
Something in your voice made Joel’s stomach tighten immediately. His eyes flicked toward the folder.
“What do you mean?”
You stared down at the papers for a moment longer before answering. “He left.”
The words sounded simple enough on their own. They weren’t. Joel frowned.
“For work?”
You laughed again. This time the sound cracked. “No.” Your fingers shifted against the edge of the folder. “I mean he left me.”
The realization hit him a second before you said it. “Oh.”
The room seemed to grow quieter.
You nodded once. “He packed a bag.” Your gaze remained fixed somewhere beyond the papers. “He told me he wasn’t coming back.”
Joel felt something cold settle in his chest. The words weren’t dramatic. You weren’t crying. You weren’t shouting. For some reason, that made them worse.
“What happened?”
When you finally spoke, your voice sounded tired. The kind of tired that went deeper than sleep.
“He brought these.”
You held the folder out slightly. Joel looked down at it. Divorce papers. His jaw tightened immediately.
“When?”
“This morning.” You swallowed. “Before he left.”
Joel stared at the documents for a second before looking back at you. The exhaustion he’d been watching settle over you for months suddenly made a lot more sense.
“He just handed them to you?”
A faint smile touched your mouth. There was no humor in it.
“Pretty much.” The laugh that followed sounded brittle. “We had coffee.” You shook your head slightly. The disbelief was still there. “He sat at that table.” Your eyes drifted toward the dining room. “The one we spent three months arguing over.”
Joel remained silent.
“He drank his coffee.” The smile vanished. “Then he handed me divorce papers.”
The simplicity of it made Joel want to put his fist through a wall.
Instead, he asked quietly: “What did he say?”
You looked down again. The answer seemed to take effort. “He said he wasn’t happy.”
Joel closed his eyes briefly. Of course he did. People always seemed to find polite language when they were about to do something ugly.
“He said we’d grown apart.” The bitterness in your voice had finally surfaced. “He said we wanted different things.”
Joel didn’t trust himself to speak. The room fell quiet again.
Then you added: “He’s in love with someone else.”
There it was. The thing Joel had suspected for months without ever wanting to believe. Not because he thought highly of Mark. Because he knew how much hearing it would hurt.
His gaze stayed on you. “How long?”
Your shoulders rose and fell. “He says six months.” The answer came with a hollow smile. “Maybe.”
Joel frowned. “Maybe?”
You looked away. Toward the kitchen. Toward the beautiful house that had consumed nearly a year of your life.
“I don’t know.” The words came out quietly. “Honestly, I don’t know anything anymore.”
You rubbed at your forehead.
“He cheated before.” Joel froze. Your eyes remained on the floor. “Three years ago.”
The room seemed to tilt slightly. Not because affairs were unheard of. Because suddenly everything he’d witnessed over the past several months looked different. The exhaustion. The anxiety. The way you always seemed to be waiting for bad news.
“Not this woman,” you continued. “Someone else.”
Joel stared. “And you stayed.”
You laughed softly. “I loved him.” The answer was immediate. Simple. Honest. “I thought we fixed it.” For the first time since the conversation had begun, your voice cracked. “I thought we’d survived it.”
Joel looked away. Because there was something unbearable about the certainty with which you’d once believed that.
The silence stretched again. When you spoke next, your voice had grown even quieter.
“I spent months wondering what I was doing wrong.” Your fingers tightened around the folder. “Why he never came home.” The next sentence hurt even more. “Why he stopped touching me.”
Joel lowered his gaze. Not out of embarrassment. Because the pain in your voice was difficult to listen to.
“I thought it was stress.” A bitter laugh escaped you. “I thought it was work.”
Neither of you spoke for several seconds. Then you swallowed. And finally said the thing that seemed to hurt most.
“She’s pregnant.”
Joel felt every muscle in his body go still. You weren’t looking at him anymore.
Your gaze remained fixed on the papers in your lap.
“He’s leaving because she’s pregnant.”
For a moment, all Joel could think about was the argument he’d overheard months ago. The baby. The months of trying. The way you’d sounded when you’d said with you.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place. Mark wanted to stop trying because he already knew.
A slow wave of anger settled in Joel’s chest. Not the explosive kind. The cold kind. The kind that stayed.
You let out another humorless laugh. “The best part?”
Joel wasn’t sure there could possibly be a worse part.
You looked up anyway. Your eyes were shining now. “They’re getting married.”
He stared at you. You stared back. The fight seemed to leave you all at once. Your shoulders sagged. The folder slipped closed in your lap.
And when you spoke again, your voice sounded almost unbearably fragile.
“I spent months trying to have a baby with my husband.” Joel’s chest tightened at your voice. “And apparently all he needed was someone else.”
The words hung in the air between you. Joel’s gaze drifted around the room. The room you’d designed. The room you’d fought for. The room you’d spent months dreaming into existence.
Everywhere he looked, he saw evidence of you. The shelves. The paint. The furniture. The details nobody else would ever notice.
And all he could think was that Mark was an idiot. A complete fucking idiot.
The feeling hit him so hard it almost surprised him. Because the truth was that Joel had spent months forcing himself not to think about you. Every time he caught himself looking for your truck in the driveway, every time he found himself wanting to tell you something before anyone else, every time Tommy made one of his stupid comments, he’d reminded himself of the same thing.
You were married. That should have been enough. For a long time, it had been.
But sitting here now, listening to you talk about a husband who barely came home, a mistress, a pregnancy, and divorce papers dropped on your kitchen table like a business transaction, Joel found that whatever patience he’d had left for Mark had finally run out.
You were still staring at the folder. Still blaming yourself. Still looking for reasons.
And suddenly he couldn’t stand it anymore. “He’s a damn fool.”
Your head lifted. Joel met your gaze. The anger was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but there was something else mixed into it now. Something he’d spent months trying not to acknowledge.
“That man is a damn fool.”
You stared at him. Then you gave a small, humorless laugh. “You don’t have to say that.”
“Yeah.” Joel leaned forward slightly. “I do.” His voice had gone rough. “Because I’ve been listenin’ to you talk for ten minutes and all I can think is that he’s out of his goddamn mind.”
Something flickered across your face. Surprise. Disbelief. Maybe both.
Joel dragged a hand across his jaw. He should stop talking. He knew that. Instead he heard himself continue.
“Do you have any idea how hard it’s been?”
Your brows pulled together. “How hard what’s been?”
Joel laughed once. A short, disbelieving sound. “Not thinkin' ‘bout you.”
The silence that followed felt enormous.
The second the words left his mouth, Joel wanted them back. Not because they weren’t true. Because they were. You simply stared at him. And now that he’d said it, he found he couldn’t quite retreat.
“I tried.” His eyes stayed on yours. “For months.”
Your pulse jumped visibly in your throat and he noticed.
“Every mornin’ I’d remind myself you’re married.” His mouth twisted. “Tommy thought it was hilarious.”
That earned the faintest flicker of a smile. Joel’s heart nearly stopped at the sight of it.
“You deserve somebody who actually sees you.” The words came quietly this time. Not angry anymore. Honest. “You know that?”
You looked away first. Joel wished you hadn’t. Because seeing the hurt on your face was difficult enough. Seeing hope was worse.
His voice dropped. “You’re smart.”
You swallowed. “Joel…”
“You’re funny.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Stubborn as hell.” Despite everything, you let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. Joel shook his head. “And you’re beautiful.”
The room went still. The words hung there. Undeniable. Impossible to take back.
Your eyes found his again. And something changed. Enough that the air suddenly felt warmer. Enough that Joel became acutely aware of how close the two of you were.
Joel wished you hadn’t looked at him like that. Because for the first time, he wasn’t seeing surprise in your eyes… He was seeing the exact same thing he was feeling.
The silence stretched between you while the room seemed to shrink around it. Joel could feel his pulse in his throat, could see the uncertainty in your expression, the way you seemed caught between wanting to step back and wanting to do the exact opposite.
You took a step toward him. Joel didn’t move. He knew he should. He knew exactly why this was a terrible idea. You’d been handed divorce papers a few hours ago. You were hurting. Heartbroken. Vulnerable. Every sensible part of him was screaming at him to put some distance between the two of you.
Instead he just looked at you. And when you stopped in front of him, close enough that he could feel the warmth of your body, neither of you pretended anymore.
Your eyes dropped briefly to his mouth. Joel saw it. The look that followed left absolutely no room for misunderstanding. You weren’t backing away. Neither was he.
His hand had already started to lift. Not because he’d decided to touch you. Because every part of him was being pulled toward you.
Joel could already imagine exactly how it would happen. The slight tilt of your head. His hand against your cheek. The first kiss he’d spent months refusing to think about. For one suspended moment, it felt inevitable.
Then the front door slammed. The sound cracked through the house like a gunshot. Both of you jumped. A second later, Tommy’s voice echoed from the hallway.
“Joel?”
The moment shattered instantly. You stepped back so quickly it almost hurt to watch.
Joel scrubbed a hand across his face. “Yeah.”
Tommy rounded the corner carrying a roll of plans. His eyes moved from Joel to you. Then to the tiny distance separating you. Then back again.
“Oh.”
Joel closed his eyes. “Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You were about to.”
Tommy’s grin appeared immediately.
You made a small, mortified sound, clutched the folder to your chest, and pointed vaguely toward the hallway. “I should go…”
Nobody knew where... Including you. But a second later you were gone. Joel watched you disappear around the corner before turning slowly toward his brother.
Tommy looked entirely too pleased with himself. And somehow, Joel knew his day had just gotten a whole lot worse.
***********
The divorce moved faster than you thought possible.
At first, you’d assumed it would take months. There would be delays, negotiations, arguments through lawyers, and endless waiting. Instead, Mark seemed determined to get through the process as quickly as humanly possible. Documents appeared almost immediately. Meetings were scheduled. Signatures were requested. Every week brought another reminder that the life you’d spent years building together was being dismantled piece by piece.
Part of you couldn’t shake the suspicion that he’d been planning this for much longer than you’d known. The thought hurt too much to examine for very long.
What made you truly angry, however, wasn’t the divorce. It was the house.
The house had never belonged to Mark. Not legally. Not in any meaningful sense. You’d inherited it from your grandmother years before you met him. The property had always been yours. Every lawyer involved knew it. Every document proved it. There was never a scenario where Mark was walking away with ownership. That didn’t stop him from trying.
The first time your lawyer mentioned it, you genuinely thought she’d misunderstood something.
“He wants the house.”
You stared at her. “What?”
She glanced down at her notes. “He knows it isn’t a realistic request, but he’s asking whether you’d consider selling it to him.”
You laughed. Not because it was funny. Because the audacity of it left you speechless.
The house. Your house. The house you’d inherited. The house he’d barely shown any interest in until another woman apparently decided she liked it. The realization came a few days later when your lawyer called again. This time she sounded irritated.
“His attorney says they were hoping to keep the property because his fiancée is very fond of it.”
You actually put the phone down for several seconds, just to make sure you’d heard correctly. Then you picked it back up.
“His what?”
“His fiancée.”
The word hit harder than it should have. Not because you hadn’t known he intended to marry her. Because hearing someone refer to her that way made everything feel horribly real.
You spent the rest of that week furious, because somewhere along the way, Mark had apparently decided he could take your marriage, your future, your years, and then walk away with your house too.
In the end, he got absolutely nothing. The house remained yours. The victory felt surprisingly hollow. By then, you’d already started realizing that winning and being happy weren’t remotely the same thing.
The day the divorce became official arrived on a Thursday morning. The hearing itself lasted less than an hour. Papers were reviewed. Signatures were confirmed. A judge said a handful of sentences that neither of you would remember five minutes later. Then it was over. Six years of marriage reduced to paperwork.
You left the building feeling oddly numb. For several minutes, you simply stood outside staring at the parking lot while people walked past carrying coffees and briefcases as though nothing important had happened.
Then you saw her. At first, she was just another woman sitting on a bench near the entrance. One hand rested absentmindedly against the curve of her stomach while she looked down at her phone.
Pregnant. Very pregnant. The sight alone was enough to make something twist painfully inside your chest. Then Mark walked toward her. And everything clicked into place.
You stopped moving. The woman looked up. Her face immediately brightened. Mark smiled back. The ease of it nearly knocked the breath out of you. There was no guilt. No hesitation. No awkwardness. Just happiness. Like this was exactly where he wanted to be.
You watched him lean down to kiss her lips. Watched him crouch beside her to say something that made her laugh. Watched him rest a hand against her stomach with an expression you’d spent years hoping to see directed toward you.
And for one terrible second, all you could think was that he’d never looked that excited with you.
The realization followed you all the way home. After that, something inside you quietly gave up. Not in a dramatic way. You still got out of bed. Still answered emails. Still met with lawyers and signed forms and handled everything that needed handling.
But the hope was gone. The part of you that kept looking for an explanation finally stopped.
Meanwhile, the house continued inching toward completion. The crew was finishing the last major details. Paint touch-ups remained. Some built-ins still needed final work. Fixtures were being installed. Every week brought another piece of the vision you’d spent so long creating.
The closer it came to being finished, the harder it became to look at. Because now you could see exactly what it was supposed to have been.
Joel remained a constant presence through all of it. Not because he inserted himself into your life. If anything, he seemed determined to do the opposite.
After what had almost happened in the living room, neither of you mentioned it again. Not once. Which somehow made it impossible to forget.
Every conversation carried an awareness of it. Every glance. Every moment the two of you found yourselves alone. You couldn’t look at him without remembering how close you’d been. How badly you’d wanted him to kiss you.
The memory embarrassed you far more than it should have. Not because you regretted it… That would’ve been easier. The problem was that you’d wanted it before the divorce. Before the papers. Before any of this.
You’d been looking forward to seeing Joel long before your marriage officially ended, and the realization left you feeling ashamed in ways you couldn’t quite explain.
It didn’t matter that logic told you none of this had started because of Joel. It didn’t matter that Mark had already been halfway out the door. The guilt lingered anyway.
As a result, you became careful. Careful with your smiles. Careful with your conversations. Careful with your eyes whenever Joel happened to look at you for a little too long.
Sometimes you’d catch him watching you. Sometimes he’d catch you doing exactly the same thing. Neither of you ever acknowledged it. The unspoken thing between you continued growing anyway. Which was exactly why you knew you had to leave.
The thought arrived gradually. Then all at once. One evening, you found yourself sitting alone in the reading nook beneath the front window while late sunlight filled the room. The house looked beautiful. Not quite finished yet, but close enough that you could finally see it clearly.
The kitchen. The shelves. The living room. The porch. Everything was becoming exactly what you’d imagined.
You should have loved it. Instead, tears filled your eyes. Not because of Mark. Not even because of the divorce. Because every corner of the house contained a future that no longer existed.
A nursery that had never happened. Family dinners that would never happen. Christmas mornings that would never happen. The dream itself had become a ghost.
By the following week, you’d called a realtor. And when she asked whether you were sure, your answer came surprisingly easily.
“No.” You looked around the nearly finished house one last time. “But I think I need to be.”
The decision felt like another loss. The final one. Even though Mark wasn’t taking the house from you… You were the one letting it go. And somehow that hurt even more.
**********
The conversation started with cabinet hardware. Or maybe paint. Later, neither of you would remember. Only that Joel had come looking for you with a notebook in one hand and a question about some final detail that still needed your approval before the crew could finish that section of the house.
The project was close enough to completion now that most of the decisions were small ones. Trim. Fixtures. Finishing touches. The kind of details you’d once spent hours debating. Now you barely glanced at the samples.
“This one’s fine.”
Joel frowned. “You didn’t even look.”
You shrugged. “They both work.”
The answer clearly bothered him. Not because of the hardware. Because six months ago, you would’ve had opinions. Strong ones.
Joel set the samples down on the kitchen island. “The other one’s more durable.”
“Then do that one.”
His eyes narrowed. You busied yourself with the paperwork spread across the counter. Mostly because you knew exactly what expression he was making. The one that meant he was trying to figure out what was wrong. The one you’d become increasingly good at avoiding.
Then Joel nodded toward the stack of papers. “What’s all that?”
You glanced down. “Oh.” The answer came out far more casually than it felt. “Listing paperwork.”
Joel stared. “Listing?”
“The house.”
You continued signing your name. One signature. Then another. When no response came, you finally looked up.
Joel hadn’t moved. “The house?” he repeated.
You nodded. “I’m selling it.”
The words sounded strangely normal now. You’d said them enough times to realtors and lawyers that they’d begun losing their power.
Apparently Joel hadn’t reached that stage yet. “What do you mean you’re selling it?”
“I mean exactly what I said.”
His expression remained fixed. “Why?”
You looked away first. Toward the living room. Toward the shelves. Toward the nearly finished house.
Then you shrugged. “It’s time.”
Joel actually laughed. Not because he found it funny. Because he clearly thought that answer was ridiculous. “Time for what?”
You folded the paperwork closed. The knot in your stomach had returned. “It just is.”
“No.” His answer came immediately. Firm. “You don’t spend almost a year building your dream house and then decide it’s time.”
The words landed harder than they should have, because he was right. You had spent almost a year building it. Every room. Every detail. Every decision.
Joel stepped closer, but not enough to crowd you. Enough that you couldn’t pretend he wasn’t standing there.
“You love this place.” The statement wasn’t a question.
You swallowed. “It’s a house.”
“Bullshit.”
Your eyes widened. Joel almost never swore around you. Apparently today was an exception.
“You love this place.” His gaze moved around the room. “The reading nook.” A finger pointed toward the front window. “The kitchen.” Then the island. “The shelves.” Then the living room. “I’ve listened to you talk about every square inch of this house for months.”
The frustration in his voice wasn’t really about the house. You both knew that.
“So tell me what’s actually going on.”
Silence stretched between you. Long enough that you considered lying. Long enough that you almost succeeded.
Then your eyes drifted toward the hallway. Toward the room that was supposed to have become a nursery one day. And suddenly you were too tired. Too tired to keep pretending. Your laugh sounded small, broken around the edges.
“It’s time to get real.” The words came out quietly. “So I’m going to sell it.”
Joel remained motionless.
“It’s a beautiful house.” Your eyes wandered through the room. “The problem is that it was built for a life that doesn’t exist anymore.”
Something in Joel’s expression shifted.
You kept going anyway, because now that you’d started, stopping felt impossible. “I designed family dinners into this kitchen.” Your voice had softened. “I designed Christmas mornings into that living room.” You pointed vaguely toward the front of the house. “There was supposed to be a nursery.”
The admission hurt. Even now.
“There was supposed to be…” Your throat tightened. You looked away. “There was supposed to be a family.”
The room fell silent. When you spoke again, your voice sounded steadier. Not because you felt so… Because you’d repeated these thoughts enough times to yourself that they had become familiar.
“It’s time to stop pretending.” Joel didn’t interrupt you, and you appreciated it. “I need a place that fits the life I’m actually living.” The smile you managed felt tired, painfully so. “Not one that’s ready for the life I’m clearly not having.”
Joel’s gaze drifted slowly around the room; the shelves, the kitchen, the nearly finished house… Then it returned to you. And just… stared.
Not because he was judging you. Because he genuinely seemed unable to process what you’d just said.
You looked away first, and the silence stretched. Eventually, Joel rubbed a hand across his jaw. His expression hadn’t changed; if anything, he looked more stunned than before.
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
The honesty caught you off guard, and a small laugh escaped you.
“That’s okay.”
“No.” His gaze dropped briefly toward the paperwork. Then lifted again. “It’s not.” Joel shook his head slightly. “I’ve spent almost a year listening to you talk about this place.” His voice remained quiet. “You had plans for every room.” A muscle moved in his jaw. “You knew exactly where the Christmas tree was gonna go.”
Your throat tightened unexpectedly… Because you had.
Joel exhaled slowly. Then looked away. The kitchen fell silent again. When he spoke next, it sounded almost like he was talking to himself.
“I thought you’d be here forever.”
You stared at him. Joel seemed to realize what he’d said a second later. His eyes dropped immediately, as though he’d accidentally spoken a truth he hadn’t meant to say out loud.
Finally, he picked up the cabinet samples he’d originally come to ask about. For several seconds, he seemed to completely forget why he was holding them.
Eventually he cleared his throat. “So…” The word sounded rough. “Which one?”
You blinked. “What?”
“The hardware.” A faint shake of his head followed. “The reason I came in here.”
You looked down at the samples. At the two options you’d barely cared about ten minutes ago. Then pointed at one. “That one.”
Joel nodded. “Okay.”
He gathered the paperwork together and turned toward the doorway. For a second, it looked like he wanted to say something else. Something important… but instead he stopped himself.
“Okay.” Then he left.
You watched him disappear down the hallway. A few moments later, you heard him speaking to one of the crew members outside.
He sounded completely normal. Like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just looked at your dream house as though he’d lost something too. You stared at the listing paperwork for a long time after that.
*********
The house went on the market three weeks later. You hated it almost immediately. Not the paperwork or the realtor. Not even the little sign that appeared beside the driveway one Tuesday morning. It was the showings.
At first, you told yourself you’d be fine. The house was just a house. People would walk through it, ask questions, make comments, and leave. It wasn’t personal.
The illusion lasted exactly one afternoon. The first couple arrived carrying coffee cups and holding hands. They spent almost twenty minutes wandering through the kitchen while the realtor explained the renovations, and you stayed mostly out of the way, pretending to answer emails at the dining table. Then the woman stopped beside the island, rested her hand against the countertop, and smiled.
“Oh, this is perfect.”
Her husband glanced up from the cabinet she’d been inspecting. “For what?”
She looked around the room. “Family dinners.”
The words hit you so hard it felt ridiculous. Of course, that had been the point. You’d spent an absurd amount of time arguing over the dimensions of the island because you’d wanted enough room for holidays, enough room for children helping with baking, enough room for people gathering around it without feeling cramped. You’d imagined birthdays, Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas mornings that started with coffee and cinnamon rolls. You left the room before they finished talking.
The second showing was even worse. A couple in their thirties arrived with a little girl who couldn’t have been older than four.
While her parents discussed square footage and storage space, the child discovered the reading nook beneath the front window. Within minutes she’d climbed into it, curled her legs underneath herself, and proudly announced that it was hers now. The declaration made her parents laugh; the realtor laughed too. You managed a smile before excusing yourself and retreating upstairs.
The third showing finally broke you. The couple themselves weren’t particularly memorable. Neither was most of their conversation. You’d heard enough prospective buyers discuss countertops and flooring by then that the details blurred together.
But then the woman stopped outside the extra bedroom. The room. You knew before she spoke. You knew exactly what was coming.
Her face lit up. “Oh, this would make a beautiful nursery.”
The sentence was completely innocent, but you made it approximately five more seconds before escaping into the backyard.
After that, you stopped attending showings altogether. Whenever the realtor called, you found somewhere else to be. Sometimes it was a coffee shop. Sometimes a bookstore. Sometimes Target, where you’d wander aimlessly through aisles without buying anything. A few afternoons, you simply drove around until the showing was over because you couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. Anywhere was easier than being there.
The problem wasn’t that people loved the house. The problem was that they loved it for exactly the reasons you’d built it. Every family saw the same things you had seen. The kitchen. The reading nook. The backyard. The extra bedroom. The future. Your future. Or at least the one you’d spent years imagining.
One afternoon, the realtor called sounding delighted. “We’ve had a lot of interest.”
You closed your eyes. Of course she sounded delighted, that was her job. “That’s great.”
And it was. Objectively, everything was going exactly as it should. The house photographed beautifully. The market was strong. Several families had already expressed serious interest. It was the sort of listing realtors hoped for. So why did it feel like grief?
The answer arrived a few days later. You returned home just as the realtor was leaving after a showing. Before climbing into her car, she handed you a feedback sheet from one of the prospective buyers.
You glanced at it casually and then stopped at one of the comments: We absolutely love the home. It feels like the perfect place to raise our children.
For a long moment, you simply stood in the driveway staring at the sentence. Reading it once, then again, and then a third time. By the time you reached the front door, tears were already burning behind your eyes… Because they were right. That was exactly what the house was.
The perfect place to raise children. The perfect place to build a family. The perfect place to grow old. And somewhere along the way, you’d become convinced that because your marriage had failed, the house had failed you too.
The thought followed you inside. Through the kitchen. Past the shelves. Into the living room, where the evening sunlight spilled through the windows exactly the way you’d always hoped it would.
And for a second, since putting it on the market, you found yourself wondering whether selling it would actually heal anything at all.
**********
Joel found you upstairs. The realtor’s lockbox was still hanging from the front door. Your car was in the driveway. Between the two, it hadn’t taken much detective work to figure out what kind of day you’d had.
The room was quiet when he stepped inside. You stood beside the window with your arms folded tightly across your chest, staring out at the backyard. The room itself was almost finished now. Fresh paint covered the walls. The trim had been installed. Sunlight poured through the glass exactly the way you’d once hoped it would.
Neither of you called it the nursery, you hadn’t for months, but that didn’t change what it was.
“Hey.”
You let out a tired laugh without turning around. “Hey.”
Joel’s gaze drifted around the room before settling on you again. He’d seen enough by now to recognize the signs. The lockbox. The showing. The expression on your face.
“Tough showing?”
You smiled faintly. “They loved it.”
Something in the answer made his chest tighten, because he understood exactly what you meant.
Your eyes remained fixed on the window. “They said it’d be perfect for children.”
Joel lowered his gaze briefly. “Yeah.”
You laughed again. A small, broken sound. “The worst part is they were right.” Silence settled between you, but eventually you shook your head. “I don’t even know why I’m upset anymore.”
Joel looked at you. The statement wasn’t true, you knew it and so did he. “I think you do.”
You closed your eyes briefly. Maybe you did, Maybe you were simply tired of saying it out loud.
“You know, when Sarah was born, I thought I had everything figured out.”
That got your attention. You looked over your shoulder.
Joel’s gaze remained somewhere distant, fixed on a memory instead of the room.
“I was twenty.” A faint smile appeared. “Told myself I knew exactly how my life was gonna go.” The smile lingered for a second before fading. “Turns out I didn’t know a damn thing.”
You watched him quietly.
Joel let out a breath.
“Sarah’s finishin’ high school next year.”
Your eyes widened slightly. Even after all this time, it always surprised you how quickly the years seemed to move when he talked about her.
Joel shook his head.
“Feels like yesterday she was ridin’ around the driveway with training wheels.” The affection in his voice softened something inside you. Then he looked back at the room. “And none of it happened the way I planned.”
The words settled between you; steady, simple and true.
“Most things don’t.”
You swallowed… Because this conversation wasn’t really about Sarah anymore.
“What happened to you is awful.” The bluntness caught you off guard. Joel never had much patience for pretending otherwise. “What Mark did.” His expression hardened briefly. “Awful.”
You looked away.
Joel let the silence sit. Then he continued.
“But you’re still here.”
A humorless laugh escaped you. “Barely.”
“No.” The answer came immediately, certain. “You’re here.”
Your throat tightened unexpectedly.
Joel gestured around the room.
“The house is still here too.”
A small smile tugged at your mouth despite yourself.
“That’s not helping your argument.”
“Wasn’t tryin’ to.”
His mouth twitched briefly. Then he grew serious again. For a few moments, he seemed to be searching for the right words. Not something he did often.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter.
“I think it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of courage.” You frowned slightly. Joel’s gaze remained steady. “I think it’s gonna hurt.”
The honesty surprised you. There was no false optimism in it, no promises that everything would magically work out, just truth.
“But I think you’ll put yourself back together.”
The room felt very still. You stared at him.
Joel shrugged slightly, as though the conclusion were obvious. As though he’d never considered any other outcome.
“You built this whole damn place.” His gaze moved around the room. “The plans. The decisions. Every little thing.” A small smile appeared. “You survived Tommy’s opinions.”
You snorted.
“That alone deserves some kind of award.”
“There you go.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Now you’re thinkin’.”
Despite everything, you laughed. A real laugh this time.
The sound seemed to surprise both of you. Joel smiled too, and for a brief moment, something passed between you. Something warm. Something that had been sitting quietly beneath the surface for months.
Joel felt it. You knew he did. Because his expression softened in a way that made your pulse stumble.
“You got more future left than you think.” The words were quiet. Careful. Not a speech. Not advice. Just something he believed.
And somehow, standing there in the room that had once represented everything you’d lost, you found yourself wondering whether he might be right.
*************
The house was done. After nearly a year of noise, dust, deliveries, delays, and an endless stream of decisions, there was suddenly nothing left to decide. The shelves were installed. The paint was dry. Every fixture had found its place. The last item on the punch list had been crossed off that morning.
You’d expected to feel relieved, but instead, the house felt strangely empty. Part of that was probably because the crew was gone. For months there had always been somebody here. Tommy arguing with someone. Music playing from a work radio. Joel appearing in a doorway with another question about some detail you’d forgotten you needed to approve. Now there was only silence.
You’d missed Joel that morning. The realization bothered you more than you cared to admit. It wasn’t as though he’d disappeared. The renovation was over so there was no reason for him to keep showing up every day.
Still, you’d assumed there would be a goodbye, a conversation… Something. Instead, you’d spent twenty minutes talking to a supplier on the phone and emerged to find half the trucks already gone, including his.
The feeling followed you around for the rest of the afternoon. By the time you wandered into the kitchen, you were mostly trying to avoid looking at the boxes beginning to appear throughout the house. Some had already been packed. Others sat half-finished. Every one of them felt like evidence that you were actually going through with this.
That’s when you noticed the note. It sat on the island by itself, folded once. Your name written across the front in familiar handwriting.
Frowning, you picked it up.
Found this hidden behind one of the old built-ins in the hallway. Figured it might belong to your grandmother.
Didn’t want Tommy anywhere near it in case he decided it was treasure.
— Joel
Your eyes immediately moved to the object sitting beside the note.
It was a small wooden box, old and worn, but beautiful. You weren’t sure how you’d missed it before.
Setting the note down, you crossed the room and lifted the box carefully onto the kitchen table. The hinges creaked slightly when you opened it.
Inside was a lifetime.
Photographs filled the top layer, some were loose, others were tucked into envelopes that had yellowed with age. Beneath them sat old letters tied together with ribbon, recipe cards covered in familiar handwriting, a porcelain brooch you vaguely remembered seeing your grandmother wear when you were small, and dozens of little keepsakes whose stories had likely disappeared long ago.
You smiled despite yourself as the house suddenly felt a little less empty.
For the next half hour, you sat at the kitchen table sorting through fragments of a life that had existed long before you were born; wedding photographs, Christmas gatherings, birthdays... Ordinary moments preserved in faded black-and-white snapshots. Your grandmother looked impossibly young in some of them, almost like a stranger.
Eventually, after removing another stack of photographs, you noticed something resting at the very bottom of the box. A book.
The leather cover was worn smooth with age. There was no title. Only your grandmother’s name written neatly inside the front cover.
You stared at it for several seconds before opening the first page, and immediately realized it wasn’t just a notebook, it was a diary. You took it and sat on your carefully picked couch and started to read.
The diary wasn’t particularly organized. Some entries were only a few lines long while others stretched across several pages. Most of them were surprisingly ordinary. There were notes about family dinners, complaints about neighbors, recipes she didn’t want to forget, and stories about your mother and uncles when they were young.
The woman emerging from those pages felt more real than the grandmother you remembered, less polished and more human.
You smiled more than once. You cried once or twice. Then, sometime after lunch, you turned a page and found yourself staring at a date from several months after your grandfather’s death.
The shift in tone was immediate, even the handwriting looked heavier somehow, as though even holding the pen had required effort. You started reading.
September 14
I spent the afternoon looking at apartments. Margaret insisted I should at least consider it, a smaller place. Less maintenance and less rattling around in rooms I don’t use anymore.
Everyone seems to think it would be easier and maybe they’re right. This house feels too large now. Every room contains some version of him.
I can’t walk into the kitchen without remembering him sitting at the table pretending to read the newspaper while actually watching the children argue. I can’t pass the back door without expecting to see his boots. I still wake up some mornings and reach across the bed before remembering.
Today I made enough soup for four people. I stood there staring at the pot wondering what on earth I was thinking. Then I cried over carrots like an idiot.
September 29
The children are worried about me. I understand why… The truth is that I’m worried about myself too.
Everything feels temporary. As though this isn’t my life anymore. As though I’m simply waiting for real life to come back.
October 3
I spent nearly an hour standing in the hallway today. The one outside our bedroom.
I couldn’t remember why at first. Then I realised I was listening. Waiting for the garage door. Waiting for his keys. Waiting for the sound of him coming home.
The strange thing is that for a few seconds it felt completely normal. Then I remembered. It is astonishing how many times grief can break your heart with the same fact.
October 17
I think I finally understand why I keep looking at apartments. It’s because every time I walk through these rooms, I am forced to remember that the future I expected is gone.
The future was supposed to be the two of us growing old here, sitting on the porch, complaining about the neighbours. Spoiling our grandchildren. Arguing about things that don’t matter.
I had become so accustomed to that picture that I forgot life never promised it to me.
October 19
I walked through the house again today. I kept thinking about all the reasons I should leave.
Then, somewhere between the dining room and the front door, a ridiculous thought occurred to me.
This house has already survived more than I have. It survived being full of children. It survived being full of noise. It survived the years when money was tight. It survived celebrations and funerals and Christmases and ordinary Tuesdays.
Why am I acting as though it only knows how to be one thing?
November 2
I realised something today.
The house is not asking me to leave. The house is not the thing hurting me. The house is simply standing where it has always stood.
I am the one trying to run.
November 6
Perhaps the real problem is that staying means accepting that there is still a future.
Not the one I planned, not the one I wanted… But a future nonetheless, and that feels terrifying.
Because if there is still a future, then I have to live it. I have to keep going. I have to become somebody I never expected to be.
A widow. A woman living alone. Someone building a life she did not choose.
November 12
I think courage may simply be staying. Not because staying is easy, but because leaving would be.
Because every day I remain here, I am forced to accept that my life did not end when that chapter ended… And some days, that feels like the bravest thing I have ever done.
You sat there for a long time after finishing the entries.
The diary remained open in your lap while the last traces of daylight slowly disappeared from the living room, leaving it bathed in the warm glow of the lamps you’d installed only a few weeks earlier. At some point, you became aware that you’d been staring at the same paragraph for several minutes without reading it again. The words were no longer on the page. They were somewhere inside your chest.
The similarities weren’t exact. Your grandmother had lost a husband she loved deeply. You had lost a marriage that, if you were being completely honest with yourself, had been dying long before Mark finally walked out the door. And yet… the feeling underneath was so familiar it made your throat tighten.
The exhaustion, the grief. The overwhelming urge to escape. Not because the house had done anything wrong, but because staying meant facing what had changed.
For months, you’d been telling yourself that selling was the sensible choice. The practical choice. The mature choice. Every explanation you’d given your lawyer, your realtor, your friends, and yourself had sounded perfectly reasonable.
Sitting alone in the finished living room with your grandmother’s diary resting open across your knees, you finally admitted something you should have realized a long time ago: You didn’t want to sell because the house was too large for your non-existent family, you wanted to sell because it hurt.
Because every room reminded you of plans that had never become reality. Because every corner contained some version of the future you’d imagined, and living beside those ghosts felt infinitely harder than walking away from them.
Slowly, your gaze drifted around the room. For months, you’d looked at everything and seen only absence. You’d seen the children who weren’t there, the husband who’d left, and the future that had collapsed before it ever had the chance to exist.
Tonight, for the first time, you saw something else. The kitchen wasn’t evidence of a failed marriage. The shelves weren’t evidence of a failed marriage. The reading nook wasn’t evidence of a failed marriage. None of it was.
The realization settled quietly over you, not like a revelation and not like some dramatic moment of clarity, but like a truth that had been patiently waiting for you to catch up to it.
Your grandmother was right. The house wasn’t the thing hurting you. The house was simply standing where it had always stood, waiting.
You thought about all the things you’d poured into it over the past year. The hours spent sketching layouts. The endless conversations about paint colors. The arguments over cabinet handles. The reading nook beneath the front window. The garden you’d already begun planning in your head.
None of those things belonged to Mark, they belonged to you. The thought should have made you sad, but instead, it brought an unexpected sense of peace.
For the first time since the divorce, you found yourself imagining a future inside these walls that didn’t begin and end with what you’d lost. The picture wasn’t clear yet, there were still enormous blank spaces where certainty should have been… But there was a future. That was the important part.
A future didn’t have to look the way you’d imagined at thirty in order to be worth living.
The realization made you smile despite yourself; simply because, for the first time in months, the future felt like something other than an empty room.
You looked down at the diary again, your fingers resting lightly against the worn leather cover before you finally closed it and set it aside. Then you reached for your phone.
The realtor answered on the second ring.
“Hi,” she said brightly. “Everything okay?”
Your eyes wandered around while she spoke. The house looked exactly the same as it had an hour earlier, and yet somehow everything about it felt different.
Home. The word appeared in your mind so naturally that it surprised you. When you finally spoke, the decision felt far simpler than the weeks you’d spent agonizing over it.
“Actually, I need to take the house off the market.”
There was a brief pause.
“Are you sure?”
A few weeks ago, you would’ve hesitated. You would’ve made a list of pros and cons. You would’ve questioned yourself. You would’ve asked for another day to think about it. This time, the answer arrived immediately.
“Yeah.” The smile that spread across your face felt small but completely genuine. “I’m sure.”
After ending the call, you remained at the couch for several minutes, listening to the quiet that settled around the house.
Sitting there in the home you’d nearly abandoned, you realized that staying wasn’t the easy choice. It was the brave one.
************
A few days passed. The realtor removed the listing and the sign disappeared from the front yard. Life didn’t magically transform overnight, but little by little, the house began feeling different.
You’d stopped packing. Then, almost without noticing, you started unpacking. At first it was practical things; dishes, towels, books... The kind of objects that made daily life function. Later came the things that felt more permanent, the things that quietly admitted you weren’t leaving after all.
One afternoon, you took down three framed photographs from the hallway. You stood there holding them for a long time; almost a decade of memories. Vacations, anniversaries… Smiles that looked genuine enough in pictures.
In the end, you wrapped them and placed them in a box.
The empty spaces on the wall bothered you immediately, so that weekend you drove to a flea market; then another, and another after that.
You came home with an old landscape painting, a vintage mirror that probably needed more restoration than you wanted to admit, and a collection of small framed sketches that made absolutely no sense together and yet somehow worked perfectly in the hallway.
The house slowly began changing. A different lamp, a chair moved from one room to another, new books on the shelves, old photographs replaced by things that simply made you happy. For the first time since the divorce, it felt less like preserving a life that had ended and more like creating one.
The realization caught you by surprise one evening while you were standing on a ladder in the living room, trying to decide whether a painting looked better two inches to the left or two inches to the right.
Your first thought was absurdly specific: Joel would have an opinion about this.
You froze; the hammer remained in your hand, the painting hung crookedly on the wall. And suddenly you realized you hadn’t thought about him properly in days.
Not because you’d forgotten him… Quite the opposite. The house had occupied all the space in your mind. The diary. The decision to stay. The process of making the place yours again.
Somewhere along the way, you’d stopped thinking about what you’d lost. Which left room to think about something else. Someone else.
You climbed down from the ladder slowly. The living room felt unusually quiet, because now that you allowed yourself to think about Joel, really think about him, there was an uncomfortable truth waiting for you.
You missed him. Not the idea of him. Not the almost-kiss. Him.
His terrible jokes. His opinions about things nobody had asked him to have opinions on. The way he somehow always appeared when something went wrong. The way the house had felt fuller when his truck was parked outside.
You sat down on the sofa and stared at the half-finished gallery wall. Then, despite yourself, you smiled. Because the thought of the future didn’t make you think about what was missing. It made you think about who you wished was in it.
************
A few weeks later, Joel still found himself looking for your driveway whenever he happened to be working nearby. It was a stupid habit, and an embarrassing one.
The job was finished, the invoices had been paid, the crew had moved on to other projects. There was absolutely no reason for him to wonder whether your truck was parked outside or whether you’d finally moved out and sold the house.
And yet, every now and then, he’d catch himself thinking about it. Thinking about you.
The realization irritated him more than it probably should have. Not because he regretted how he felt… but because there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
The day he’d left your house without saying goodbye hadn’t been one of his finer moments. He knew that. Tommy certainly knew that.
In fact, Tommy had spent the better part of two weeks informing him exactly how stupid he’d been.
“You just left?”
Joel had continued loading tools into the truck and just grumbled as a response.
“You didn’t say goodbye?”
“No.”
Tommy had stared at him. Then shaken his head like a disappointed parent.
“You are genuinely unbelievable.”
The problem wasn’t that Joel hadn’t wanted to say goodbye, the problem was that he hadn’t trusted himself to do it.
The house was finished. You were selling it. He’d been standing in a doorway watching you walk away from something you loved, and every instinct he’d possessed had been telling him to stay out of it.
So he’d done the only thing that felt safe. He’d left.
The decision hadn’t gotten any smarter with time. By the end of the month, he was mostly trying not to think about it anymore. Which was exactly what he was doing when he locked the door to the workshop one evening and turned toward the parking lot.
The crew had already gone home; the last of the trucks were pulling out, Tommy was arguing with somebody about inventory. A perfectly ordinary day.
Then Joel saw a familiar car parked near the fence. His steps slowed immediately.
For a second, he genuinely thought he was imagining things. The sun hung low over the yard, throwing long shadows across the gravel. A few workers were still loading equipment, but beyond them, leaning casually against the side of your car, was you.
Joel stopped walking. His brain seemed to forget how the next part worked.
You were here. At the yard. Waiting. The realization hit him with surprising force.
Because in every version of this conversation he’d imagined over the past few weeks (and there had been far more of those than he’d ever admit aloud) he was the one who found you, not the other way around.
Across the lot, your eyes met his. And then you smiled. A real one. Not one of the tired smiles he’d seen so often near the end of the renovation.
Something warm settled unexpectedly in his chest. For the first time in months, you looked happy.
The thought distracted him long enough that he didn’t notice Tommy stepping up beside him.
His brother followed his gaze, saw you, and then immediately looked back at Joel.
“Oh.”
Joel closed his eyes.
“Tommy.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
Tommy grinned.
“I absolutely was.”
Joel pinched the bridge of his nose. When he looked up again, Tommy was already backing away.
“Inventory emergency.”
“You literally just-”
“Very urgent.”
“Tommy.”
“Good luck.”
And then the bastard was gone.
Joel watched him disappear before turning back toward the parking lot. Toward you. Toward the woman he’d spent the last several weeks trying very hard not to miss.
He didn’t stop until he was standing in front of you. Up close, he could see things he hadn’t noticed from across the parking lot.
The way your hair had been pulled back in a hurry. The faint smudge of dust on your jeans. The fact that you looked lighter somehow. Not happier, exactly, but lighter. Like you’d finally set something down.
Joel had imagined seeing you again often enough over the past few weeks that you’d think he’d have something intelligent prepared.
Instead, the only thing that came out was: “Hey.”
Your smile widened slightly.
“Hey.”
God, he’d missed that smile. The realization arrived so quickly and so completely that it almost knocked the breath out of him.
He’d missed your laugh. Your opinions. The way you could spend twenty minutes discussing something nobody else would notice and somehow make it sound fascinating. He’d missed walking into a room and immediately looking for you.
Mostly, though, he’d missed being looked at the way you were looking at him now. Like you were happy he was here. Like you’d come here hoping to see him. The thought made his pulse kick.
“What are you doing here?”
You glanced down briefly before looking back up.
“I came to see you.”
Joel forgot how to breathe just for a second. A very long second.
Something in your expression softened when you realized the effect those words had had.
“Well.” A nervous laugh escaped you. “Actually, I came to see Tommy too.”
Joel narrowed his eyes.
You immediately laughed. “Okay, that’s a lie.”
“Thought so.”
The smile that appeared on his face felt entirely beyond his control.
You looked at it. Actually looked at it. And suddenly Joel became painfully aware of the fact that the two of you were standing in the middle of a mostly empty construction yard while the evening sun turned everything gold.
“So.” His hands settled on his hips. “Everything okay?”
The question was simple. The answer wasn’t.
For a second, you simply looked at him. Then you nodded.
“Yeah.” Your voice sounded different. “Actually…” A small laugh escaped you. “Better than okay.”
Joel’s brow furrowed.
You took a breath. And then said the last thing he’d expected to hear.
“I’m keeping the house.”
Joel stared at you.
You smiled. The kind of smile that started somewhere deep and worked its way outward.
“I’m staying.”
For a moment, he couldn’t find words.
“What changed?”
Your gaze softened.
“I found something.”
Joel immediately thought of a man. The possibility lasted less than half a second before he realized how ridiculous that was.
Whatever expression crossed his face made you laugh. A real laugh. One he hadn’t heard in months.
“My grandmother’s diary.”
Relief flooded through him so quickly it was almost embarrassing.
You told him about the box. The note. The diary. The entry you’d spent all day reading and rereading.
Joel listened without interrupting. And when you finally finished, the yard fell quiet again.
The evening had grown softer around you two. Most of the crew had left. The sounds of traffic drifted faintly from somewhere beyond the fence.
You looked at him.
“I think I was trying to run.”
Joel nodded slowly.
“Yeah.”
The answer surprised you.
“Yeah?”
A small smile touched his mouth.
“Little bit.”
You laughed. Then shook your head.
“I hate when you’re right.”
“Happens a lot.”
“According to who?”
“Me.”
That earned another laugh. God, he’d missed that sound.
For a few moments, neither of you spoke. The silence wasn’t awkward. It felt comfortable. The kind that only existed between two people who already knew each other.
Then you glanced toward the workshop behind him.
“There’s one more thing.”
Joel’s stomach immediately tightened. The way you said it. The way your fingers twisted together. The way your gaze lingered on his before darting away again.
He recognized nerves. Because he was suddenly feeling them too.
“What?”
You looked down. Then back up.
“I realized something else while I was unpacking.”
Joel waited.
You swallowed. And for the first time since he’d walked over, you looked uncertain.
“I missed you.”
The words were quiet. Simple. Completely devastating.
Joel stared at you. The entire yard seemed to disappear. The trucks. The tools. The building behind him… All of it. Gone. Leaving only you.
You laughed nervously.
“I had this whole speech planned.”
His heart was hammering now.
“Yeah?”
“It was better than this.”
“Doubt it.”
Your eyes met his. The look that passed between you felt familiar. Because it was.
It was the same look from the living room. The same look from the nursery. The same look that had been chasing both of you for months. Only this time neither of you had anything left to hide behind.
Joel took a step closer. Not much. Just enough that your breath caught. His did too.
“I missed you too.”
The confession came easily. Far more easily than he’d expected.
“You know,” he said quietly, “I spent three weeks convincing myself not to drive past your house.”
Your eyebrows lifted.
“Three weeks?”
“Wasn’t very successful.”
The laugh that escaped you was beautiful.
And before Joel could stop himself, he reached up and brushed a loose strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture was gentle. The moment his fingers touched your skin, the air between you seemed to shift.
Joel felt something inside him finally settle. Months of wanting. Months of waiting. Months of bad timing. And suddenly there you were. Standing right in front of him.
His hand lingered briefly against your cheek.
“Hey.”
Your voice came out softer now.
“Yeah?”
The smile that appeared on your face was small. Tender and a little nervous.
“You never said goodbye.”
Joel laughed quietly.
“No.”
“You should probably fix that.”
His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth. Then returned to yours.
“Yeah.” The word came out rough. “I probably should.”
And when he leaned in this time, there was nothing rushing either of you.
The first kiss was soft. Almost impossibly soft. The kind of kiss that carried months of restraint inside it.
Joel felt the small breath you released against his mouth before he kissed you again, and this time neither of you seemed quite as careful.
One of your hands slid up to rest against his chest. The other found his shoulder. The simple contact nearly undid him. Because he’d spent so long wanting to touch you.
Not like this. Not only like this. Just… touch you. To know you were real. To know this wasn’t another conversation replaying itself in his head on the drive home.
The next kiss lingered longer. Warmer. Your fingers brushed the back of his neck, and Joel couldn’t stop the quiet sound that escaped him when you moved closer.
The distance disappeared entirely. The feeling of your body against his made every sensible thought he’d ever had evaporate.
Joel’s hand slipped from your cheek into your hair. The kiss deepened naturally, neither of you hurrying, neither of you trying to prove anything.
There was no desperation in it. Only relief. Relief at no longer pretending. Relief at no longer walking around everything that had existed between you from the very beginning.
When you finally broke apart, neither of you had gone far. Your foreheads remained touching. Your breaths mingled.
A smile was still pulling at your mouth. Joel’s wasn’t doing much better.
“Hi,” you murmured.
The laugh that escaped him was helpless.
“Hi.”
You kissed him again before he could say anything else. Short and sweet.
Joel closed his eyes briefly.
“You know,” he said, his voice rougher than usual, “I had a whole speech prepared.”
Your eyebrows lifted.
“You?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened to it?”
His gaze lingered on you. The evening light caught in your hair, and the sight of you standing there smiling at him made the answer embarrassingly obvious.
He shook his head.
“Forgot every damn word.”
Your laugh wrapped itself around him like sunlight.
And standing there in the middle of a dusty construction yard, with the day fading around them and the future stretching wide open ahead, Joel couldn’t remember ever being happier to lose his train of thought.
*************
The bedroom was filled with the breathless sounds escaping your lips as Joel moved with relentless determination, drawing you closer to the edge with every thrust.
A moment earlier, he’d adjusted the position of your leg, and the subtle change had somehow brought him impossibly deeper. The resulting groan tore from his throat before he could stop it, low and desperate, while his forehead pressed briefly against yours. His breathing mingled with yours, uneven and heated, and the way his hands tightened around you made it clear he was losing the battle to stay composed.
Nearly two years together, and somehow nothing had dulled the effect you had on him. If anything, it had become worse. More familiar. More intimate. More addictive. Every glance, every touch, every sound still had the power to unravel him in ways he would have thought impossible before you came into his life.
“There you go, baby. That’s it. Come for me.”
The rasp in his voice sent a shiver through you, drawing a helpless moan from your lips as you wrapped your arms around him and pulled him even closer. It wasn’t enough. It never felt like enough. You wanted every part of him within reach, wanted to erase the space between your bodies entirely, as though holding him tighter could somehow bring you closer still.
The sound he made in response was low and unsteady, and for a moment neither of you seemed capable of anything except clinging to each other and letting the rest of the world disappear.
When pleasure finally crashed over you, it stole the breath from your lungs and sent your back arching into the mattress. Your cry echoed through the room as you clung to him, overwhelmed by the force of it.
Joel followed you moments later. A low groan escaped him as he buried his face against your shoulder, holding you tightly while he spilled himself inside of you. For several seconds, neither of you seemed capable of anything except holding on, caught in the aftermath and in each other.
The morning sun continued creeping across the bedroom floor while you lay curled against Joel’s side, one of his arms beneath your head and the other resting lazily across your waist. His breathing had started to slow, the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek familiar enough now to feel like home.
The room was quiet. Comfortable. The sort of silence that only existed between people who no longer felt the need to fill every moment with words.
Your fingers traced idle patterns across his stomach. Then, before you could stop yourself, the question slipped out.
“Do you think we did it this time?”
Joel’s hand paused. The question wasn’t unusual anymore. Not since the two of you had finally decided to stop talking about someday and start talking about maybe.
His thumb brushed slowly against your side.
“Maybe.”
You smiled.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I’ve got.”
The smile in his voice was impossible to miss.
You lifted your head slightly.
“Coward.”
Joel looked down at you.
“Sweetheart, I spent twenty years raising a teenage girl by myself.” His eyebrows lifted. “There ain’t much on this planet I’m scared of.”
The laugh that escaped you earned a grin from him.
For a moment, you simply looked at each other. The conversation felt different now than it would have years ago. Back then, the subject had carried so much weight. Now there was hope. Hope and uncertainty. But somehow the uncertainty didn’t feel frightening anymore. Not with him.
Joel brushed a strand of hair away from your face.
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
His expression softened.
“I think if it happens, it’ll happen.”
You narrowed your eyes.
“That’s a terrible cliché.”
“Yeah.”
“It doesn’t even mean anything.”
“I know.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “But I mean it.”
You pressed a kiss against his shoulder. Then reality finally returned.
“How long until she gets here?”
You reached for your phone on the nightstand. Your eyes widened.
“Oh no.”
Joel immediately sat up slightly.
“What?”
“An hour.”
“An hour?”
“An hour.”
The silence that followed was almost comical.
Then Joel dropped back onto the pillows.
“She’s bringing him.”
You buried your face against his shoulder.
“She’s bringing him.”
The boyfriend. The mysterious boyfriend. The boyfriend neither of you had met. The boyfriend who apparently existed but somehow remained suspiciously absent from every photograph Sarah had sent.
Joel looked toward the ceiling.
“What if he’s terrible?”
You started laughing immediately.
“What if he’s great?”
“What if he’s terrible and I gotta pretend he’s great?”
“Joel.”
“What?”
“You are not allowed to interrogate him.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
You stared. Joel stared back. The silence stretched.
“You were absolutely planning to.”
His expression remained completely innocent.
“I just have questions.”
“You have an entire questionnaire.”
“Maybe.”
You laughed so hard you nearly fell off the bed. Joel caught you automatically, pulling you back against him. The movement was easy. Natural.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. The sunlight. The bedroom. The house. The future… Everything felt wonderfully ordinary. And after everything it had taken to get here, ordinary might have been the most beautiful thing of all.
Then Joel sighed dramatically.
“We should get dressed.”
“We should.”
Neither of you moved. Not even a little.
Thirty seconds passed. Then a minute. Finally Joel looked down at you.
“You know Sarah’s definitely got a key.”
Your eyes widened. The two of you launched yourselves out of bed at exactly the same time.
some blurby angst coz i've been so busy lately. i'm so sorry my loves!
tags: established relationship, death, graphic description of wounds, joel miller being a sad old fuck, dialogue is heavily inspired from when sarah died :(
you, ellie, and joel had barely made it out of k.c., the horror of sam and henry still fresh in your minds. there was no time to grieve, no time to rest. you just had to keep moving, get closer to wyoming, push forward—because stopping obviously meant dying.
unfortunately, raiders didn’t care about those plans.
the ambush came out of nowhere. a bullet shattered the windshield of an old ford truck joel managed to have hotwired. then came gunfire. you barely had time to react before you were running—through the trees, through the dark, through the biting wind—until the sharp, searing pain in your stomach stopped you cold.
you didn’t even realize you’d been stabbed at first. not until you looked down and saw the knife buried hilt-deep in your gut. not until the raider sneered and twisted the blade, making your knees buckle, your breath hitch in a strangled gasp.
and then joel was there.
a gunshot. the raider dropped.
you drop to your knees, a sharp gasp tearing from your throat as pain rips through you. your hand instinctively clamps over your stomach, but it does nothing to stop the blood—warm, thick, spilling through your fingers in heavy pulses.
oh, god.
you can feel it—your strength draining away, your body growing weaker by the second. how could someone lose so much in mere moments? how could you go from running, breathing, living—to this?
your vision blurs. the trees sway. the cold bites at your skin.
and then—
“j-joel…” your voice is barely a whisper, but it’s enough.
his footsteps thunder toward you, fast, desperate. he’s on you in seconds, dropping to his knees, tossing his rifle aside as his hands find you.
“fuck—fuck—you’re okay, you’re okay, i got you,” he mutters, but there’s panic in his voice, raw and unsteady. his hands press against the wound, but it only makes you whimper, your body jerking as fresh pain shoots through you.
joel flinches. “shit, i-i know, i know, baby, i know—just hold on, okay?”
you try to breathe, but every inhale feels like fire licking through your ribs. you let out a shaky, bitter laugh, gripping onto his arms, fingers digging in as the agony becomes unbearable.
“the movies—” you choke out, a joke beginning to come out, your breath hitching, “—they don’t make it seem… t-this painful…”
joel swallows thickly, his face twisting. “i know, baby, i know, but you gotta—you gotta hold on—”
a fresh wave of blood gushes out, warm and relentless, coating his hands.
“no—no, no, no, you’re losing too much—shit—fuck—ELLIE!” his voice cracks as he screams for her, for anyone, for help that isn’t coming fast enough.
his hands—warm, rough, shaking—pressed against your stomach, trying, failing, to keep everything inside. but there was too much. too much blood, spilling between his fingers, soaking through the layers of your clothes, pooling beneath you. it was thick, warm at first, but cooling too fast.
joel was muttering, barely coherent. his breath came in short, ragged gasps, his words tumbling out in panicked desperation.
“shh—shit, shit, shit—no, nonononono, baby, look at me—l-look at me, keep your eyes open, d-don’t—don’t you fuckin’ close ‘em, okay?”
you tried. you really did. but it was hard. everything was fading—blurring at the edges, the sounds, the sights, the pain all dulling like you were sinking underwater.
joel’s hands pressed harder. you choked on a gasp as the pain flared, white-hot, deep in your gut. you could feel it—could feel the way your insides weren’t right anymore, the sick, awful way something inside you had ripped.
joel knew it, too.
his breathing hitched. “no, no, no, baby, d-don’t—don’t go quiet on me. i-i’m gonna fix this, i—fuck, i just—” his voice cracked, raw and broken. “ellie’s comin’ back with help, you just gotta hold on a little longer, okay? j-just—fuckin’ hold on—WHERE THE FUCK IS ELLIE?”
you wanted to tell him it was okay. that he didn’t have to lie.
but when you tried to speak, all that came out was a wet, gurgling cough. something warm trickled from the corner of your lips—coppery, thick. joel flinched like you’d shot him, his grip on you tightening.
“hey, hey, hey—breathe, baby, breathe—c’mon, stay with me, s-stay with me, please—”
his voice was shaking. joel miller—who never fucking stuttered, never lost his composure, never let anyone see him break—was unraveling right in front of you. his face was streaked with dirt, with sweat, his eyes blown wide, wild, terrified.
he was crying. joel miller doesn't cry. he wasn't like this when tess died.
“i-i can’t—” your voice was barely there, strangled by the blood rising in your throat.
joel made a sound—half a sob, half a curse. he pressed his forehead against yours, his breath hot and frantic against your skin.
“you can. you can, baby, please—please, don’t do this to me.” his voice was hoarse, crumbling under the weight of something too heavy to bear. “i c-can’t—i can’t lose you, i c-can’t—”
his hands were trembling. they weren’t supposed to do that. joel’s hands were supposed to be steady, strong, unshakable. but now they were gripping you like they were the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely.
you tried to lift a hand—to touch him, to wipe away the tears staining his face—but your arm wouldn’t move. it was too heavy. everything was too heavy.
“i love you,” you whispered, lips barely forming the words.
joel let out a broken, wrecked sound, pressing a desperate, shaking kiss against your temple, your hair, anywhere he could reach.
“i love you—i love you so goddamn much, baby, please don’t go, please—”
and then—nothing.
this seems a little too ooc for joel, but i'd like to think reader meant a whole lot to him. sorry for being gone for a whilee <3
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pairing: steve harrington x reader
words: 1.6k
contains: mature themes, heavy angst, apocalypse au, friends to lovers, hurt/no comfort, major character deaths, brief mention of unaliving self but does not take place witin the story, brief description of corpses, female reader, no use of y/n, she/her pronouns for reader.
author's note: i'm so sorry for this one. please do not read if you are uncomfortable with the above warnings!
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"Do you think th-that—it's going to take a while?" You ask Steve quietly, the lump in your throat like a stone as you look at him sitting on the floor beside you.
Steve glances back at you before his eyes shift down to the mark bite on your forearm—the one near identical to the one on his own. He shallows before he shakes his head.
"I reckon we have—half an hour at most. The infection's already spreading," he says, voice thick with emotion as he points to the dark veins that run up his arm, the skin that was blackening around the bite mark from the infected that lay only a few feet away with a bullet in its brain.
You look down at your own arm and see the darkness spreading through your veins too. Something heavy settles in your chest.
Thirty minutes. That was all you had left.
It was stupid really. Both you and Steve knew you shouldn't have left the safety of Hawkins. You knew that you shouldn't have left the small and tight knit community where there were people who loved you, running water and plenty of resources but Steve had wanted to get Dustin a new comic book for his birthday, for some semblance of normalcy for the kid and you hadn't wanted him to go alone. You had snuck out plenty of times before and you had both naively presumed that a walk to the town not even twenty minutes away wouldn’t be a problem.
But now—you'd never return home and the others would likely find your bodies when they would inevitably come looking for you in a few days' time. All because you had forgotten to check the basement. And now—you were both paying the ultimate price.
It was unspoken, what you both had to do in order to stop yourself from turning into an infected. The cyanide pills that were always tucked into your backpack just in case had been sitting on the floor in front of the both of you, taunting you.
“I’m—” you begin, your voice thick with tears.
“Don’t you dare,” Steve mutters, already anticipating what you were about to say. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I’m the one who wanted to come here.”
“But I didn’t check the—”
“—I don’t want you dying blaming yourself,” Steve interrupts, his voice breaking slightly when he looks back at you.
Tears spill down your cheeks as you quietly accept it—the fact you and Steve Harrington were going to die on the floor of a comic book store. The fact you were going to die beside the man you loved.
There was no saving grace here. Just you, Steve and the inevitability of death. Inevitable because there was no cure. Nothing that could save either of you from the infection that was already spreading through your body.
"Least we're together," Steve murmurs, looking at you with a soft expression. You notice the tears in his eyes but you don't comment on them. "We're not alone."
You watch then as Steve holds out one of his large hands, palm up, for you to take. You swallow before you place your hand over his. His touch brings a warmth to you that not even the deadly infection could take away.
"That makes things a little better." You say, blinking away tears as you look back at him with a faint smile.
"You think so?" Steve asks, nudging his knee with yours as he manages a small smile. "Wouldn't you rather Robin be talking your ear off or talking to Nance about that book you both like?"
You shake your head before you wipe away some of your tears. "No. There's no one else I'd rather be with you than you. No one.”
It was the most honest yet terrifying thing you could have said. And yet—there was not a single part of you that was scared because the only thing more certain than the fact you were going to die was the fact that you loved him. Not even death would take that away.
Steve blinks, his hand in yours stills for a moment before he asks. “What—does that mean that you—”
“Yeah,” you whisper back quietly with a small squeeze of his hand. A shared understanding in that gentle squeeze, in the look in your eyes. “Not the best timing for…confessing my feelings but if we’re going to—you know—I just, I wanted you to know.”
Steve says your name and you’re quick to shake your head. Because you didn’t want pity or for him to be sorry that he didn’t feel the same—
“It’s fine, Steve. You don’t have to—”
“—no, look at me. Please.”
You do. Because it was Steve and you loved him and you would do almost anything he said.
When you look at him you can see the sorrow in his eyes. The devastation that his and your life would soon come to an end. But also the flicker of something softer, something you couldn’t quite decipher but made the weight in your chest feel a touch lighter.
“There’s no one else I’d rather spend my last moments with than you,” Steve tells you, his other hand cupping your cheek. His thumb gently strokes across your skin, touching you as though you were more precious than gold.
Your face feels warm and you try to stop the smile from spreading across your face as you look back at Steve, tears falling down your cheeks, everything beginning to feel a little hazy as the infection continues to spread but none of that seemed to matter as Steve Harrington smiled back at you.
“You mean that?” You ask quietly. “You really—”
“—’course I do,” Steve whispers. “It’s you. It’s only ever been you. It’ll always be you.”
You barely have time to breathe, to comprehend what he had just said before Steve’s lips are against yours. You let out a soft, startled sound of surprise before you melt into him. There was no gentleness, no hesitation, just years of build up and unspoken words that had been burning between the two of you for years. His mouth was almost desperate to taste every inch of yours before everything came to an end.
Your fingers found themselves carding through his hair as your lips molded against his and for a moment, you could almost convince yourself that you weren’t going to die. That you and Steve would make it out of this, that you’d have years together. Maybe you’d even have a family or you’d live long enough for there to be a cure for the damn infection that had swept across the globe.
But it was with a bone crushing realisation when Steve pulls away from you in order to catch his breath that you don’t have time. You don't have years, you don’t have days. You barely have an hour. You would not live to know what a lifetime would have looked like with Steve. All you had was half an hour before the infection took over your mind and you would have to take the pills before you lost yourselves completely.
You let out a sob before you could stop it.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get more time,” Steve whispers, pressing his forehead against yours so his warm breath kisses your skin. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It’s okay,” you whisper back, something in your chest twisting when you see a tear slip down Steve’s cheek. “Half an hour will do.”
It was a lie, it was a damn lie because whether it was an hour you had, or a day, a year or even a lifetime, it wouldn’t have been enough. No matter what time you had with Steve, it would have never been enough. But in that moment, it was a lie you both chose to believe.
“I love you,” Steve tells you, the words building a warmth you couldn’t quite describe. “I love you and I need you to know that before we—”
Your eyes flickered back down to the small box on the floor in front of you before looking back at Steve.
“I love you too,” you breathe out. “So much.”
“We’ll see Eddie again,” Steve says hopefully, wiping away your tears gently as he sniffles. “And Chrissy. El. Bob.”
“Eddie’s gonna give you an earful when you tell him you broke his guitar,” you say with a wet laugh.
“What’s he gonna do?” Steve asks. “Kill me again?”
It wasn’t funny, not even a little bit but it makes you laugh anyway. And it doesn’t take long for Steve to laugh too.
“If the last thing I get to see is your smile then it’s a pretty good way to go out,” Steve smiles, eyes shining with tears. “All things considered.”
“Hope the last thing I hear is your laugh. Or one of your really bad jokes.”
“My jokes are great.”
“Debatable.”
Steve’s hands shake slightly before you pull you back in for another kiss. Then another and another and another until you weren’t sure where you ended and Steve began, until you were surely to run out of breath.
“I love you,” Steve murmurs against your lips. “I love you, I love you, I love—”
“I love you too,” you tell him before you shut him up by pulling him back in.
Tears were still falling down your cheeks and Steve was clinging to you like you were his only reason to keep breathing. You weren’t sure how long you had before you began to lose your mind but you knew that you weren’t going to be alone. That Steve would be right there with you as you journey from life to the new adventure of death.
And days later, when Hopper found both you and Steve on the floor of the comic book shop, he’d found the two of you still holding hands—finally at peace, together at last.
pairing: exboyfriend!steve harrington x fem!reader
word count: 3.9k words
summary: in which you and steve break up and robin feels like she’s stuck in the middle
warnings: explicit language, very angsty, a bit of fluff
author’s note: there’s lowkey no better feeling than finally finishing something that you’ve left unfinished for months upon months<333
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
“So, you’re really just going to avoid each other for the rest of your lives?”
You nodded at Robin's simplification of the situation at hand. “That’s still pretty much the plan, yeah.”
“Okay, well, I'm sick of this custody arrangement where I only see one of you one day and the other the next day,” She said, slumping back against the couch in her living room. “These past two weeks have sucked. It literally feels like I'm a kid going back and forth between my divorced parents.”
“I'm the dad and Steve's the mom, right?”
“Obviously,” Robin responded to your playful words. “But no time for joking right now. What I'm trying to say is that I hate being stuck in the middle.”
You wanted to tell her that that wasn’t the case at all— you and Steve weren’t trying to make her choose a side, and you weren’t telling her that she could only be friends with one of you— but you didn’t say any of that because she was pretty much right, she was caught in the middle of your and Steve’s breakup.
The three of you had been best friends, and it was a trio that was forged through long days of slinging ice cream. And even when you and Steve started dating at the end of that summer, things really didn’t change between the three of you all that much. Robin was happy about your and Steve's relationship because she loved bragging that she had seen it coming from a mile away, and you’d all still hang out constantly and never once did she feel like a third wheel.
It had all been so perfect.
Until it wasn’t. And now everything had changed.
“And I get it,” Robin continued. “I get why you guys are broken up, and I understand the reasoning behind it and all of that. But, is there any way that things could maybe go back to how they used to be before you leave for college?”
“I don’t know,” You admitted honestly. You had no idea if you could actually let things go back to how they were. After being so in love with Steve— there had even genuinely been moments where you considered a “forever” with him— the thought of just becoming his friend again felt a little too weird and a lot too depressing to you.
Robin sighed but ultimately nodded, and you two went back to watching the movie playing on the TV.
You felt grateful that she didn’t bring up the promise that you and Steve made to her when you first started dating— how if things somehow didn’t work out between you and him, you’d all still be able to stay close friends. You never once thought that you and Steve would break up, and you especially never thought that you’d end up in a place where all you wanted to do was avoid him, so in the moment, it had felt so easy and like a no-brainer to make that promise to her. It was a promise that you now viewed as naive and so stupidly hopeful.
However, at the end of the day, it was still a promise, and even though Robin hadn’t brought it up, it was all you could think about for the rest of the night. And it became the reason why you decided to call Steve for the first time in two weeks when you got home that night.
It went entirely against your plan of quitting him cold turkey— no talking to him, no seeing him, absolutely no contact with him whatsoever. But, you fought the urge you immediately had to hang up the phone after you finished dialing his number and it started ringing.
“Hello?”
“We need to do something with Robin,” You said, skipping past any and all greetings and niceties.
“I’m hanging out with her tomorrow,” Steve responded, and you easily picked up on the confusion in his voice. “And didn’t you two just hang out tonight?”
“No, I mean together. We need to hang out with her together,” You told him as you started mindlessly twirling the phone cord around your index finger. “She hates how different things are now, and I think we should show her that we can be… okay around one another.”
“Okay” seemed like the best, and only, word to use in this context; it wasn’t too much. You definitely felt like you couldn’t say friends or anything else remotely close to that.
“I'm thinking we do a movie at The Hawk and then dinner at the diner,” You continued.
“Classic Friday night,” Steve responded.
“Exactly,” You said, nodding even though he couldn’t see you.
It had been a staple among the three of you, and you could only allow yourself to inwardly admit how much you really missed those nights. Going to the movies, spending hours at the diner afterward, dropping Robin off at home before her midnight curfew, and then you and Steve heading to his place, falling into his bed, and talking about anything and everything until the sun came up. Your heart ached harshly in your chest the more you thought about it, and the more you thought about how a night like that would never happen again.
You cleared your throat and willed away the feeling in your chest. “So, yeah, movie and diner. You in?”
“Of course, anything for Robin,” He told you. “And, I guess, we did kind of promise her that things would stay okay between all of us if we did ever break up.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking about too,” You responded, and the conversation came to a quiet end. All too quickly, an awkwardness that felt impossible to ignore started to linger; the harsh reminder of just how different everything was between you and him. You immediately wanted to push that feeling away. “Um, I should go. I’ll see you Friday, I guess.”
“Okay, yeah. See you Friday.”
You let out a sigh when you placed the phone back on its hook. A wave of nervousness washed over you, but you pretended that everything was fine and that spending time with Steve for the first time since the breakup would be completely fine too.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
“I know this is a pity hangout, but I'm still having fun.”
You shook your head at Robin’s words. “It’s not a pity hangout.”
She gave you a look that said that she didn’t believe you in the slightest. “So you two decided to set this up because you wanted to and not because of all that stuff I said a couple nights ago?”
“Yes, exactly,” You said, and then took another sip of your milkshake so that you could break eye contact with her.
Before she could say anything in response to that, Steve came back from the bathroom and slid back into the booth that you three had been occupying for the last half an hour; you and Robin on one side and him on the other.
“Okay, it hit me while I was in there. It actually makes so much sense why that guy ended up being the killer,” He said, referring to the movie you all had just watched. “When the first girl was murdered, he got to the scene of the crime way too fast.”
Robin let out a laugh. “You had this groundbreaking epiphany while you were in the bathroom?”
“Yes, I do my best thinking in there sometimes,” Steve responded with a shrug, which only made her laugh harder, and you were unable to bite back your own amused smile. He only playfully rolled his eyes in response.
“Honestly, the movie kinda sucked,” Robin said when her laughter subsided, and you and Steve hummed in agreement. “Ooh, you know what we need to rewatch again? A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
You groaned. “No. Can we please stay away from horror for a little while? I need to remind my brain that happy things still exist.”
Steve gave you an amused smile. “What’s your suggestion instead? Watching The Muppet Movie for the millionth time?”
“Joke’s on you because I was actually gonna say The Muppets Take Manhattan,” You said, and then teasingly stuck your tongue out at him because it felt like second nature to do so, and he laughed.
Somehow, this entire night had felt weirdly okay and actually somewhat easy thus far; like there truly was a way for the three of you to go back to being that “trio” again. You tried not to let yourself think too far ahead, though. This was only one night, and you knew that it wouldn’t be able to change everything for the better. You simply just wanted to live in this really good moment.
“Wait, that would actually be a good idea for a movie night,” Robin said. “We all watch whatever our favorite movies from childhood were.”
A conversation started from there, where you all talked about movies you loved when you were kids. You made fun of Steve’s childhood love for the Willy Wonka movie just like he made fun of you with The Muppets, and you both refused to believe Robin when she said that her favorite movie when she was younger was Taxi Driver.
“I had impeccable taste, even as a kid,” She had said, and you rolled your eyes while Steve threw a stray fry at her.
After spending what was definitely way too long at the diner, the three of you were back in Steve’s car, and he started the quick drive to Robin’s house; she was the closest to the diner, and even you could recognize that it wouldn’t make sense to drop you off first, like when he had picked you up last at the start of the night. However, you had prematurely planned for this; asking Robin yesterday if you could spend the night at her house after the diner, and she, of course, said yes.
This night with Steve had surprisingly gone okay— pretty much better than just okay— but that didn’t mean that you wanted to be left alone with him, even if it would only be for a ten-minute car ride. You could just imagine how quickly things would fall into awkwardness if you two didn’t have Robin to be the perfect buffer. Without her, you couldn’t even imagine what this night would’ve been like. Without her, this night wouldn’t have existed.
“Oh, I meant to mention this earlier, but there’s been a slight change of plans,” Robin said when Steve was parked in front of her house, and you started unbuckling your seatbelt to get out too. She turned around to look at you. “You can’t sleep over tonight. My mom is, um, being really weird about… my room. I haven’t cleaned it in forever. It’s a mess. And she doesn’t want me having anyone stay over because of that. So yeah. Sorry.”
“Robin,” You looked at her as if she were insane. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious. You know how my mother is,” She told you and then opened the passenger side door. “Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow. Get her home safe, Harrington. Bye.”
Before you could say anything, she was closing the car door behind her and practically running up her driveway and to her front porch steps, giving you two one final quick wave before heading inside.
“She’s unbelievable,” You mumbled as you finished unbuckling your seatbelt and then opened the back door.
Steve became entirely confused by your actions. “You’re walking home?”
“No, it just feels too weird being in the back when the front seat is open,” You answered and then moved to the passenger seat. You met Steve’s eyes just for a second and then looked away.
“That could’ve been great practice for when I decide to pivot into my next job as a cab driver,” He said as he started driving, making a left turn at the end of Robin’s street and heading in the direction of your house.
You wanted to laugh at what you knew was a joke, but all you could focus on was how jarring it felt that he wasn’t turning right toward his place, like what would usually happen on these types of Friday nights.
And it felt weird being in his passenger seat too. It no longer felt right to adjust the seat to how you liked it, or turn up the radio, or jokingly change the station to a country one because hearing the sound of a banjo always made him laugh for some reason. It only felt okay to sit with your hands in your lap and stare out the window at the houses passing by. Somehow, it was being here in his passenger seat, and feeling like a stranger within it, that reminded you of what you and Steve now were to each other.
You took another quick look at him. “Did you actually think I would’ve rather walked home instead of being alone in a car with you?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
“I don’t hate you, Steve.”
“I know, but before tonight, you had made it really clear that we should never talk to each other again,” He responded, making another turn at another stop sign. “The only reason we hung out tonight was because of Robin.”
That was entirely true, but that was the last thing you wanted to talk about in this moment.
“If anything, you should hate me. I’m the one who’s leaving.”
He immediately shook his head. “It would be really messed up if I were mad at you for going to college.”
“Well, I mean, you did break up with me because of it,” You responded, which made Steve sigh.
“Saying it like that makes it sound really fucked up.”
By the end of that hour-long breakup conversation two weeks ago, it had ended up feeling like a mutual thing, but at the end of the day, it was still Steve who had brought it up in the first place.
“What other way is there to say it?” You weren’t trying to be mean to him in this moment, but you suddenly worried that the bluntness of your words made it come off that way, especially when he didn’t say anything in response to you at first, and a silence took over the car.
“It was stupid,” Steve said softly, filling the prevailing quiet. “Probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.”
A part of you wanted to roll your eyes at his words, while the other part of you felt a tiny sliver of hope that inadvertently made your heart race. It was your turn to sigh. “Do you actually mean that?”
When he broke up with you, he had talked about how long-distance relationships never worked and how they only prolonged the inevitable and always made the couple hate each other. Honestly, everything he was saying sounded like something you would have said; you’d always been the more logical thinker. However, when it came to you and Steve, you always inadvertently led with your heart over your head.
“Yes, I wish I had never said it, but I just thought it was the right thing to do.”
“Because long-distance relationships never work?” You said, reminding him of what had been his main point when he broke things off.
“No,” Steve shook his head. “Because you’re going to college and you’re gonna do great things, and I don’t wanna hold you back.”
That was not at all what you expected to hear from him.
It was so honest and vulnerable, and you suddenly saw that last conversation you two had entirely different, and all you could now do was replay the whole thing in your head.
Barely a minute later, Steve was pulling up in front of your house. However, there was absolutely no way that you were getting out of his car now, not when he just dropped what felt equivalent to a bomb on you.
“What?” You turned to look at him, finally responding to his previous words. “What does that even mean?”
“I don’t— I didn’t want things to get to the point where you started choosing me over really important opportunities,” Steve answered, meeting your eyes.
For a second, all you could do was blink at him. You wanted to understand his words, and you wanted to fully see his point of view, you really did, but it was too hard to think rationally right then because you just felt so confused.
“Nothing’s even happened yet. I’m not even there yet,” You told him, trying to keep your voice calm and steady, but it felt damn near impossible. “You were thinking about problems that don’t exist.”
“Once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t not think about it,” He responded. “And then I just wanted to rip off the band-aid, if that makes sense. End it before us being together started ruining things for you.”
You looked away from him then, slumping back in your seat. “You should’ve told me the truth, Steve. Not some bullshit reasons about long-distance relationships failing.”
“It was stupid,” Steve said, repeating the words that pretty much started this conversation in the first place.
“It was,” You agreed, still staring straight ahead at your dark street.
“And I’m sorry for lying to you. I wish I had just told you the truth instead of being a scared idiot,” He said, and you could only nod in response at first.
There was too much running through your mind right then. It was a lot of contradictory thoughts and feelings that only confused you and went against everything that you’d convinced yourself was true over the last two weeks.
The breakup was hard, almost too hard, so you had told yourself that you needed to do the one thing that would be “easy” and force your brain to accept it; your heart was a completely different story, but you figured it would catch up eventually. However, now it was as if your head didn’t know what to do or think or feel, and your heart stupidly wanted to be completely truthful in this moment.
“We would’ve figured everything out,” You told him after a few beats of silence. “I honestly think we could’ve made anything work. Long distance, random life changes, whatever. And I know that’s probably naive of me to say, but I really did believe in us.” You shook your head at yourself. “Somehow, we completely switched roles. You became the logical one and I became the hopeless romantic.”
“I don’t wanna be the logical one anymore. I tried it out and completely fucked everything up.”
“It’s…” You tried to figure out exactly what you wanted to say. There was so much you could’ve said right then, but your thoughts felt too scattered to form a coherent sentence. “It’s okay.”
The conversation came to its natural stopping point there. You didn’t know what else to say or do in this moment. This talk felt unfinished, but you had no idea how to finish it in a way that would make everything feel like it was wrapped up in a pretty little bow. In a perfect world, you and Steve would easily make up from here, pick up right where things left off, and pretend as if the last two weeks hadn’t happened. But, the world you two lived in wasn’t perfect, so you silently figured that maybe it would make more sense if you simply just left things as they now were.
You started unbuckling your seatbelt. “It’s late. I’m gonna go.”
“You sure?” Steve asked, and you only nodded instead of saying anything.
You pushed open the car door. “Night, Steve.”
“Night,” He responded softly and then proceeded to watch you walk away from his car.
You were heading up your front porch steps, moments away from unlocking your door and heading inside, when Steve made the impulsive decision to unbuckle his seatbelt and run after you.
“Wait,” His voice slightly startled you, and you turned around. He was racing up your steps to catch up to you, and you were about to ask him what he was doing, but he started speaking before the question could even form on your lips. “I think you’re right. No, scratch that, actually, I know you’re right. I want us to work, and I know we can, I really do. And I know you were speaking in past tense, so maybe you don’t believe in us anymore, but I still do. I’m such an idiot for overthinking everything, and I’m so sorry for not being honest about what I was thinking. If I could go back and do things completely different, I would, one thousand percent. I love you so goddamn much, and I don’t think that will ever change. And I know it’s my fault that we’re in this position in the first place, but I hope I didn’t ruin things so terribly that I can’t fix it. Because I really want to fix this—”
You cut off his rambling with a kiss; your hand found his cheek, and you slotted your lips against his. Steve reciprocated immediately, not wasting a second to kiss you back, even though he was slightly surprised by the action.
It was the exact thing your heart needed in this moment, and it is what it had been aching and yearning for these past two weeks.
Leaving things as they were made sense because it was technically easier, but it was far from what you actually wanted, and hearing Steve’s rambling apologies and how much he wanted to fix things only made you want to show him that you agreed completely; you didn’t want to give up on you two either.
Kissing Steve felt like second nature to you, as if absolutely no time had passed since the last time his lips were on yours. In a way, it felt like coming back home.
When you pulled away, you met Steve’s eyes and gave him a soft smile. “Okay.”
“Okay?” He asked, eyes searching yours with a hopeful look on his face, as if that kiss hadn’t just said it all.
You nodded at his words, and he didn’t hesitate to pull you in for a hug. His arms tightened around you, and you inwardly sighed in contentment at the feeling. You felt at ease in Steve’s arms, and all you wanted to do was grab his hand and lead him inside your house. Instead, though, you decided to savor this moment because there was no need to rush things; you two had all of the time in the world.
“I hope you know that Robin’s gonna say that this is all her doing,” You said, words slightly muffled because your face was buried in Steve’s neck, but he heard you clearly.
From the moment Robin left you alone in the car with Steve, you knew exactly what she was trying to do, and you were now grateful for her abrupt plan; even though it had been very risky and could’ve potentially made things worse.
Steve laughed a little at your words, and you couldn’t help but smile at the sound. “Oh yeah, and she’s never gonna let us forget this. This will definitely become her new favorite story to tell everyone.”
You laughed too and pulled back so you could look up at him. “Definitely.”
pairing : bodyguard!Din Djarin x afab!princess!reader
rating : 18+ mdni
word count : 4.6k
summary : the reader attends a ball
warnings, etc. : language, angst
A/N : i had to change accounts so this is a re-upload of my ongoing fic bks!!
There’s a visceral sense of dread when you wake up, for several reasons.
The glaring obvious culprit of your discomfort would be the fact that today’s your husband's birthday. The much more subtle one being the fact that it still sounds like someones revving a podracer out in the main room, clearly indicating to you that the Mandalorian is still asleep.
You should wake him.
The last thing you need is the girls coming in to find him in your bed.
So you sit up, trying to stretch as quietly as possible before getting up and making your way out.
There are a lot of questions milling about in our mind right now, the most prominent one regarding his memory of last night.
Will he remember what he said?
Will you tell him if he doesn’t?
He seemed pretty out of it, and even if he did recall his words would he even address them?
He has to. He can’t just do that to you. It doesn’t matter how tired he is, he doesn’t get to toy with you like this.
So you step into the main room.
How is it possible to look so serious while sleeping yet sound so ridiculous?
You make your way to his side of the bed, gently shaking his shoulder.
“Mando, you need to get up.” You mumble, still trying to wake up your own brain.
He’s unmoving. His snores are as consistent as ever as you reach down to grab both of his shoulders, shaking him much less gently.
“Get up, the girls are gonna be here any min-“
You don’t even get a chance to scream as you’re flipped onto the bed. In the blink of an eye he’s got you shoved into the mattress. The wind gets knocked out of you, on instinct your hands go to take a defensive position in front of you but they’re pinned into the sheets, his body on all fours hovering above yours.
Neither of you speaks for a moment as he seems to still be waking up, your eyes wide as you stare up at him.
“…It’s just me.” You manage to squeak out through your shock and his grip on your wrists immediately loosens. Before he has a chance to react further there’s a single knock at the door signifying that Elaine and Lysa have arrived and as the door swings open you both move too quickly and your forehead knocks against his helmet as you struggle to get out from under him which subsequently sends you off the edge of the bed.
You can’t help but think that this morning can’t possibly get worse.
Of course it does though because you’re you and for some reason the Maker loves to see you suffer.
You grab onto him for support before you go tumbling off the mattress and of course he goes off of it with you and of course he twists himself so he hits the ground first.
Normally you’d be touched by the fact that his natural instinct was to protect you, but you don’t really have a chance to because the wind is knocked out of you for the second time this morning as your chest slams against his when his back hits the ground.
The girls walk in on the scene you’ve found yourself in and their chatter immediately goes silent.
Your first thought as you get your bearings is, at least you aren’t on the bed anymore.
But you can’t help but wish you’d stayed like that as you realize the position you’re in now. Your thighs straddle his waist and he’s holding you against him as you both groan in pain.
You both turn to look at the girls in sync, Lysa has a look of horror on her face and Elaine simply shakes her head as she grabs the other girl's arm, dragging her out of the room in silence before slamming the door shut.
You stare at the Mandalorian underneath you once they’re gone. You must look like a tomato with how red your face has become.
Before you can make it any worse he silently grabs you by the waist and lifts you off of him, setting you down next to him, neither of you daring to move further until he clears his throat.
“Are you alright?” He sounds as embarrassed as you feel.
“Yeah, just a little shaken up.” You whisper back. He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.
“I didn’t mean to, I’m not used to being-“
“I know. It’s okay.”
It makes you a bit sad. What a life he must have known to have reacted like that when being woken up. To immediately be under the assumption that someone is going to hurt him.
He spends all of his time protecting you but who protects him?
Before you have any more time to wallow in that realization he’s on his feet and pulling you to yours.
You open your mouth to say something, anything, but he’s already heading for the door and you don’t bother trying to stop him as he goes, leaving the door open for the girls to come back in. As they step back into the room cautiously you watch him lean against the opposite wall before Elaine closes the door.
They both stare at you expectantly but you don’t have any words. No sense in lying and the truth sounds like a lie so you just keep your mouth shut.
When they realize you aren’t going to explain yourself they sit you at the vanity, Elaine takes a brush to your hair as Lysa hurries off to the closet, she looks more mortified than you do.
You frown at the mirror and watch as Elaine stifles a laugh.
“It isn’t funny.” You grumble as she continues brushing your hair.
“Of course it isn’t, my lady.” She dons an expression of mock seriousness as you turn around to glare at her.
“Nothing happened, he was just sleeping.” Before the words even leave your mouth you know they must sound absurd as she chokes back another laugh.
“I’m sure he was ma’am.” She turns your head back towards the mirror and you don’t bother arguing further.
Lysa returns from the closet with a dress you’re sure you’ve never seen before and you can’t help but gawk at it.
It’s gorgeous. You swear you haven’t seen it there before, it’s a beautiful champagne ball gown, she sets it carefully onto the bed.
“Shall we go to the fresher? We’ve already drawn your bath my lady.” Elaine takes you by the arm and leads you out of the room. The Mandalorian looks like he’s managed to pull himself together as the girls lead you to the fresher down the hall. He follows closely behind, only halting when you arrive, thank gods he stays outside when the girls usher you in.
They carefully strip you of your nightgown and Lysa leads you to the tub. Once you’re settled they prepare to take their leave.
“You’ll need to see to it that you are properly clean, my lady, you’ll want to look your best for tonight, can I get you anything before we leave to continue your preparations?” Elaine cocks an eyebrow as Lysa hurries out, still not making eye contact with you. “Don’t worry about her.” Elaine winks and you frown at the implication.
“Just a book if I’m going to be here for a while I suppose.”
She nods.
“Right away, my lady. And shall I send the Mandalorian in when I take my leave?”
“Elaine!” You shriek as she leaves, snickering until the door is shut, leaving you to stare, embarrassed, into the bubbles.
After you have to sit in your shame for a few minutes she returns with a smirk, handing you some raunchy romance novel which you take with a scowl before she leaves without a word.
You soak in the tub for quite some time. You get through a good third of the book by the time the girls come to get you.
If you thought they spent too much time dressing you on a normal day that was nothing compared to today. Hours of doing absolute nonsense to your body. They rub unfamiliar oils into your hair and skin, pluck at stray hairs and spend an obscene amount of time deciding what jewelry would look best with the dress.
You try to find a time to talk to Mando but everytime you think you’ll get the chance one of the girls whisks you away for another unfamiliar skin care regimen until you feel scrubbed and raw.
They quite literally do this the entire day. By the time they’re done the sun is setting outside your window and you know the ball is going to begin soon. They lace you into the gown. It really is a work of art with its long flowing skirt and the way it hugs your torso. A beaded pattern runs up the front like vines. The color of it reminds you of the way Elaine makes your tea and caf, a light cream color.
They decided on pearls. Simple and elegant strings of pearls around your neck and wrists. You stop them as they go to do your hair.
“Can we leave it down? I like it the way it is.” You stare at yourself in the mirror.
You look nice. Really nice.
Like you.
“It looks good like that.” Lysa speaks up, seemingly she’s recovered from earlier.
“If you need anything at all, do not be afraid to call for us, my lady.” Elaine says as she smiles at you before they make their way out.
“Elaine?”
“Yes, princess?” She turns to face you, Lysa on her arm.
“Send the Mandalorian in please.” She doesn’t hide her smirk.
“Right away, my lady.”
They’re gone and you’re left alone for a few moments as you admire their work in the mirror until you hear the door softly creak open. He doesn’t speak as he enters, closing the door behind him, you smooth out the front of your gown with your hands before turning to face him.
“Can we talk about last night?” You try not to sound like you’re begging but in all honesty if that’s what it takes to get him to talk you’ll do it.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” His voice is cold and unfeeling. You hate it.
“Please don’t do this.” You close your eyes. You give him a moment, a chance to say something, but he never speaks so you take a deep breath before marching towards the door, he’s hot on your heels.
“Princess, please, just wait-“ He tries to shut the door but you yank it open.
“I’m sick of waiting, I’m not doing this again, now let's go before we’re late.” You snap at him before taking off towards the main hall, the sounds of music and chatter already filling the castle.
He doesn’t try to stop you again.
You walk until you see a line of people entering the hall, all of them clearing a path for you, as you step into the noisy, bright room you’re immediately overwhelmed. A man immediately to your left loudly announces:
“Princess Harand.”
You cringe slightly at the name as you stare out into the crowded hall.
There's way more people than you had expected. If it weren’t for his tasteless electric blue suit you wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for Kodo. Is it literally glowing? It looks like the jacket is literally glowing.
You have to shimmy your way through the crowd to get to him, eventually, once people see the Mandalorian they start clearing a path. He always stays just a few steps behind.
Get to Kodo, wish him a happy birthday, have a few drinks, make sure people see you, then get out. It’s easy enough.
When you finally make it to Kodo you can hear him saying something vulgar loudly to a group of men, many of whom you recognize from that terrible dinner a few moons back. A fair amount of them take a step back as you approach with the Mandalorian.
It disgusts you to do so but you lean in to give Kodo a chaste kiss on the cheek.
“Happy birthday, my prince.” You give him the best smile you can muster considering the fact that he repulses you and you’re already in a sour mood because of Mando.
“There’s my little mouse! I’ve been waiting for you!” He wraps the arm that isn’t currently nursing a drink around your waist as he pulls you in for a sloppy, drunken kiss. You manage to pull away from it quickly and resist the urge to wipe your mouth. He holds you at his side for a disappointing amount of time. Dragging you around like an accessory or perhaps a show dog for everyone to see, never even directly speaking to you. That is until about an hour and a half into your time at the ball, he leans in to whisper to you, his breath hot on your ear.
“Say, little mouse, what do you reckon the Mandalorians type is?”
The abruptness of his question makes your blood run cold.
Married women? Princesses?
You struggle to come up with an answer for a brief moment until he drunkenly slurs in your ear again.
“I’d like to give him the night off, maybe give him a girl for the evening.”
The thought makes you sick.
Of course, maybe the Mandalorian would want that sort of thing. But you want no part of it if that is the case so you give Kodo a weak smile as you eye Mando, still standing behind you, certainly listening in to this conversation.
“I have no idea, dear husband.” You whisper back.
Almost as if on cue the doors are pulled open and you see exactly what Elaine meant when she said that this party would get rowdy as the night went on. What must be dozens of girls are ushered into the room and Kodo immediately releases his grip on your waist.
“Run along now little mouse, perhaps go get yourself some refreshments.” He doesn’t even bother to look at you as he says it, his eyes trained on the women as they make their way over to him. Birthday boy must get to pick first you think as you roll your eyes, making your way over to a table with drinks, gulping down a glass of wine. As you look around the room you can’t help but laugh dryly.
It seems like all the other wives have been dismissed.
You sip on another glass of wine as you watch Kodo pick out three girls.
Ambitious.
You want to laugh again but you don’t get the chance to as Kodo points behind him and see him leading one of the girls towards Mando.
You hadn’t even realized he wasn’t with you, Kodo must have told him to stay.
She’s pretty.
It makes your stomach churn as her fingers trace his chest plate and you can’t look anymore as she starts whispering to him. You look back to your husband whose tongue is already down another woman's throat.
That should bother you more, but you feel nothing as you stare.
Yet when you look at Mando simply speaking to the beautiful woman before him your heart clenches.
So you stop looking, instead you shove yourself through the crowds until you make your way out of the party.
Struggling to catch your breath as you stumble through the hallway, kicking your heels off and rushing towards the door you know will take you to the gardens. Desperate for air.
You don’t hear his footsteps coming up behind you. You don’t even see him until you’re outside the castle, marching towards the forest trail.
“Princess, please.” You hear the crackle of the modulator but ignore it as you continue stomping barefoot across the grounds. He catches up easily, he reaches for you but you swat his hand away.
“Go back inside, I’m sure that girl is waiting for you.” You snarl before continuing to make your way into the trees. You aren’t exactly sure what the goal is here but you just know that you need to get as far away from the castle as possible.
“Don’t do that, you know I didn’t ask for that.” He pleads as you turn around to face him, hiking your skirt up a bit.
“You seemed bored and she seemed to be entertaining you just fine.” You hiss, before turning back around and continuing your hasty trek until you finally reach the gardens, settling near a few trees as you look up at the moon.
What’s the plan now that you’re here?
You’d kind of assumed that he wouldn’t follow you yet here he is, moonlight reflecting off of his armor.
“Go back to her, I’m sure you’ll have a much better time there than you will here.” You grumble as he stands behind you, dutifully as ever.
“I dismissed her. Obviously.” His tone is snarky and his breath sounds shallow as you turn around to better assess him.
He’s panting. It’s a bit surprising considering he’s so rarely out of breath, he’s never struggled to keep up with you previously and in instances of stress he rarely sounds winded.
Yet right now his chest heaves under his armor and he sounds as if he has been chasing you his entire life and has only just now caught up.
“What is wrong with you? You sound as though you have followed me across the planet, not out into the gardens.” You scold him as you lean against one of the trees. Sick of playing this endless game with him as his head falls back in exasperation.
“This is what happens when one aches as I have ached.” He growls back, taking a step towards you and pointing an accusatory finger in your direction.
“You… ache?” Your brows are furrowed in confusion at his choice of words as you scoff.
“Yes.” He drops his hand to his side as he sighs.
“I don’t- I don’t understand.” You stand up straighter as your gaze softens a bit, he sounds so dejected.
His helmet faces you with such severity that it is as if there isn’t a layer of steel between you. It’s as if you’re staring directly into each other's eyes.
It’s quiet. The only sounds are his heavy breathing and the occasional sound of bugs buzzing through the leaves of the greenery around you. The modulator crackles every so often like he’s trying to figure out what to say but just can’t seem to find the words. Every so often he’ll stutter out the start of a sentence and then stop.
You don’t walk away this time.
And you don’t chastise him.
Instead you let him figure it out as you stare at him, unable to keep the sympathetic look off your face as you try to come off as stern.
You give him time, he watches you as you watch the moon.
After several minutes he seems to settle into a calm so you look back into the visor.
He sighs, and when he does speak his voice is low and hoarse.
“I ache. Day and night, my flesh, my bones, and my mind ache.”
Your breath catches in your throat.
He takes a step towards you.
“I ache in your presence, I ache when we are apart and the only thing that soothes the agony within me is to be the object of your attention. I cannot so much as breathe without being wounded by you. You have buried yourself so deeply within my very being that I cannot escape you. There is not a blade in this galaxy that is sharp enough to carve out the mark you have left inside of me.” His voice doesn’t tremble, he doesn’t so much as stutter as he speaks now.
You have to look away. You don’t know how it’s possible for someone wearing a helmet to have such an intense gaze but you can’t bear to see it anymore as you stare at the ground.
“You don’t mean that. You can’t possibly mean that.” Is all you manage to mumble, your mind racing almost as fast as your heart as he takes another step towards you, he’s within arms reach of you but he makes no move to touch you yet.
“I could leave right now. Pack up my things and fly to the furthest outer rim planet I can find, spend the rest of my days alone, and every second of my existence would still be spent wondering if you are okay, what you are doing, and if you are happy.”
He brings his hand up to rest under your chin, tilting your head up to face him once more before dropping it to his side again.
“They could drag me away right now, lock me up, bind me in steel in the deepest cell the castle dungeon has to offer. They could torture me for things I’ve done to you, for the things I yearn to do to you, and I would live out the rest of my days hoping that my imprisonment does not inconvenience you.”
He takes one more step forward. You’re certain you’re trembling at this point, his voice drips with a level of devotion that you cannot begin to fathom. He’s close enough now that if you listen carefully enough you can hear his real voice behind the helmet along with the modulated version, unfiltered and raw.
“You could force me to my knees right now, make me renounce my creed, tear my helmet from my head, and lay me bare for your judgment. And all I would do is pray that my face is up to your standards.”
His breathing is labored as he stares down at you.
There is no air of falsehood to his words yet you can’t seem to accept them.
You want nothing more than to believe everything he is saying but you just can’t bring yourself to, as you stare right back up at him.
“Why should I believe that? Why should I believe a word that comes out of your blasphemous mouth when I don’t even know who I’m talking to?” You can feel your anger bubbling to the surface.
He doesn’t seem to have a response and you’re getting fired up so you don’t bother waiting for him this time.
“Why should I believe that this is not a trick? That you are not simply toying with me to get me into your bed?” You jab a finger into his chest plate as you say it.
He doesn’t so much as move an inch.
“Every hour I find that I am speaking to a new version of you, why should I believe that this version, the version that aches will not be gone just as quickly as the others?” Your voice is strained as you continue to berate him, the part of you that longs to believe his every word is creeping into your mind as you try desperately to shove it away. “I don’t even know which one I’m speaking to now, so who is it Mando?”
He takes another step forward and you shove him back this time. You know you aren’t actually strong enough to move him so you’re grateful for the fact that he takes a step back on his own.
“I know I’ve been cruel to you and I’m sorry, you think it doesn’t bring me shame to know that I’ve hurt you?” His voice carries that gentle tone that always manages to soothe you, the one he reserves just for you, except this time it does nothing to put you at ease.
“It brings you shame? Imagine how I feel. You do not know what it is to ache as I have, you are one of the only good things I have left and I don't even know what you are. So tell me Mando, who have you decided to be today? My bodyguard? My lover? Perhaps you would like to be my rival today, or maybe even my friend?” You feel your eyes growing misty as you fight to keep what little composure you have left. “Spit it out! Which Mando have you decided to be today? I’d love to know who I’m talking to, which one have you decided to be? Who are you Mando?”
“Din.”
“What?”
“Right now I’m Din.”
It takes a moment for it to register in your brain. And when it does there isn’t room for anger anymore, and there isn’t room for confusion. There’s only room for him, he’s taking up all the space.
Din.
“Is that okay?” His voice is barely a whisper.
Just Din.
You don’t want to be mad at Din.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. For everything.”
“It’s okay.”
“It isn’t though.”
“Din is enough, for now.”
You want to take his hand, something, anything to comfort him, to let him know that for now it’s okay, but before you get the chance you feel leather covering your eyes. His hand presses gently against the top half of your face and your vision goes dark.
And then you hear the hiss of air.
You let out a small gasp and as you do his lips are on yours. Warm, soft, and needy.
You’ve read hundreds of kisses. Every one of your little romance novels has them. They’re always rough, desperate and electric. That’s always how they’re described. Like an electric shock.
This isn’t that.
This is familiar, and sweet, quite literally his mouth tastes like vanilla. (If that’s even possible.) It crosses your mind that this is probably his first kiss but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. As his lips fit against yours like they were made to. As if he were forged just for you. His kiss feels like he wants to melt into you, like he’d be content to do just this for the rest of his life.
But most importantly, it soothes the ache.
He doesn’t pull away, he breathes into you. His mouth is persistent against yours, his stubble scratching against your chin. When you bring your hands up to cup his face you realize he’s holding his helmet up just enough to expose everything below his nose. You settle for resting them on his shoulders instead.
He doesn’t ask for more.
Just this.
He doesn’t push for anything other than his lips on yours and it gives you a strange feeling of safety.
And it’s over too soon.
He pulls away and before you’re ready for it to end you hear air hissing again and his hand moves from your eyes to cradle your cheek.
You’re staring at Beskar, as if he never even took it off in the first place.
“Was that okay?” He sounds almost self-conscious and you can’t help but smile.
“More than okay.” You murmur as his thumb caresses your face.
“I will make it up to you. For everything I did, I will find a way to make it up to you.”
“Okay, Din.” You say softly as he reaches down to take your hand.
“No more days, no more rules, and no more games. Just you.” You let him bring your hand up to rest on the steel of his helmet. “I’ll make it up to you sarad.” He holds your hand there for a moment before taking a step back. “I have an idea.”
It feels too good to be true. All of this, and something in the back of your mind tries to remind you of that fact but you push it away.
“I want you to know me, is that okay?”
You nod.
He holds his hand out to you.
You take his hand. You take Din’s hand.
“Would you like to see my cabin sarad’ika?”
I am no longer doing taglists so follow @lincolndjarinnotifs and turn on notifications to be notified when new chapters are posted !!
Summary: After a night out, Steve gives you his jacket on a freezing street. (purely thinking of boyfriend!Steve in that slutty little jumper)
The night air hit you like a wall the second you pushed open the heavy bar door. Inside, everything had been overwhelming, the music pulsing through your ribs, the crowded room thick with heat and laughter and spilled drinks. But out here, the cold was immediate and unforgiving. It sliced right through the thin fabric of your dress, raising goosebumps across every inch of exposed skin. You sucked in a sharp breath, shoulders hunching instinctively as you stepped onto the sidewalk.
Steve followed close behind, letting the door swing shut with a dull thud that cut off the muffled bass still thumping from inside. The street was nearly empty now, just the occasional streetlight casting long, hazy glows across the pavement and the faint hum of the city in the distance.
You tried to play it off. Crossed your arms tightly over your chest, tucked your hands under your elbows, and started walking like the chill wasn’t already making your teeth want to chatter. But Steve had always been annoyingly observant.
“You cold?” he asked after half a block, his voice easy but laced with that familiar knowing tone.
You shook your head a little too fast. “I’m fine. It’s not that bad.”
Steve glanced over at you, one eyebrow raised in that very Steve way. The kind of look that said he saw straight through your bullshit but was giving you a chance to save face. “Really? Because your arms are practically glued to your body right now.”
“I’m just… walking briskly. For warmth,” you replied, lips twitching despite yourself.
“Uh-huh.” He nodded slowly, clearly not buying it. “And the fact that you’re doing that little shoulder-shrug thing every ten seconds? Totally normal walking behavior.”
You opened your mouth to argue, but another gust of wind came barreling down the street, rattling the leaves on the trees lining the sidewalk. This one cut deep. A violent shiver ripped through you, making your whole body tremble for a second. You pressed your lips together hard, trying to hide it.
Steve stopped walking immediately.
“Steve, don’t-” you started, already seeing his hands move to his jacket.
Too late. He was shrugging it off with that effortless, decisive motion he always had, like taking care of you was the most natural thing in the world. The white t-shirt underneath clung to his shoulders and chest, and you could already see the goosebumps starting to form on his arms in the cool air.
“You’re going to freeze,” you protested, even as your eyes lingered on the jacket he was now holding open for you.
“I’m fine. I run warm, remember?” He gave you a soft, crooked smile. “I’m basically a human furnace. Put it on before I start worrying about you turning into a popsicle.”
You hesitated, biting your lip. Part of you still wanted to be stubborn, to prove you could handle it. But the cold was winning, and the promise of his warmth was too tempting. With a small sigh, you stepped forward and let him drape the jacket over your shoulders.
God, it was perfect.
The fabric was still heavy with his body heat. You slid your arms into the sleeves, which completely swallowed your hands, the cuffs dangling past your fingertips. It smelled like him, clean laundry, a hint of cedarwood cologne, and that warm, masculine scent that always made your stomach flutter. You pulled it tighter around yourself and let out a quiet, involuntary hum of relief.
Steve didn’t move. He just stood there, staring.
“What?” you asked, tilting your head up at him with a small smile.
“Nothing.” His voice had gone quieter, a little rough around the edges. His eyes traced over you slowly, how the jacket hung oversized on your frame, the way you were burrowing into it, cheeks pink from the wind. There was something disarmingly soft in his expression, almost vulnerable. “You just… look really good in that.”
You felt heat bloom across your face. “It’s just your jacket, Steve.”
“Yeah, but it’s on you,” he said simply. He ran a hand through his hair, looking almost bashful for a second. “It’s doing unfair things to me.”
You laughed lightly and stepped closer, reaching out to tug at the front of his t-shirt. “You’re such a sap. Come here before you actually freeze to death.”
“I’m not that cold,” he insisted, but he let you pull him in anyway. His arms came around you slowly at first, careful, like he was still giving you an out, then wrapped around your back more firmly when you pressed your face into his chest. You felt him exhale, long and deep, his breath warm against the top of your head.
“Liar,” you murmured into his shirt. “I can feel you tensing up already.”
His chuckle vibrated through his chest. “Okay, maybe a little chilly. But worth it.” One of his hands rubbed slow, soothing circles over your back, the weight of it comforting even through the thick jacket. “I was trying to pull off the whole ‘cool, unaffected boyfriend’ thing tonight. You’re ruining my image by being this cute.”
“You don’t need to be cool all the time,” you said, tilting your head back to look at him. “I like you better when you’re just… you. Even if that means admitting you’re cold.”
Steve’s gaze softened, that particular blue in his eyes catching the glow of the streetlight above you. He brushed a loose strand of hair away from your face with gentle fingers. “Yeah? Well, I like taking care of you. Even if it means freezing my ass off.”
You rose up on your toes and kissed his cheek first, then the corner of his mouth. He turned his head just enough to meet you properly. The kiss was slow and sweet, tasting faintly of the whiskey he’d sipped earlier and the familiar warmth that was so distinctly Steve. When you pulled back, his eyes stayed half-closed for a moment, like he was savoring it.
“We should probably keep walking,” you whispered, though you made no move to step away. “Before your arms fall off.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, voice a little hoarse. He kept one arm draped around your shoulders as you started walking again, pulling you snug against his side. Your hand slipped into his, fingers lacing together naturally. The too-long sleeve kept slipping down, but Steve just smiled and adjusted it for you without comment.
After a minute of comfortable silence, you glanced up at him. “You’re still staring.”
“Can you blame me?” He squeezed your hand, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “My girl looks warm and cozy in my clothes, kissing me on a random street at night. I’m feeling pretty damn lucky right now.”
You leaned your head against his shoulder as you walked, the cold nipping at your legs but feeling distant now. “You’re freezing and you’re still flirting. Impressive.”
“Hey, priorities,” he teased, but his voice was warm. “Flirting with you will always come first. Even if my teeth start chattering in about five minutes.”
You laughed and hugged his arm tighter. “We’re almost home. I’ll make you hot chocolate when we get in. With the mini marshmallows you pretend not to like but always steal from my mug.”
“Deal.” He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, lingering there for a second. “And you’re keeping the jacket tonight. Maybe longer. Looks better on you anyway.”
The walk stretched on under the quiet streetlights, your steps in sync, the occasional car passing by and the distant city sounds fading around you. Every few paces, Steve would glance down at you with that small, private smile, the one he only seemed to wear when it was just the two of you. And even though the night was cold, wrapped up in his jacket, his arm, and his quiet affection, you’d never felt warmer.
𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 ryland grace & fem!reader
𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬 you're the medic on the hail mary and come across a photo that must've slipped from your personal supplies which changes the entire dynamic between you and who you thought was your co-worker.
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 1.6k
𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 i CANNOT believe it has taken people this long to jump on the ryan gosling train. as always, i this nawt proof-read whatsoever #lewl. nerdy silly white boy with biceps, i want you.
you thought you had it all figured out.
well...most of it anyway.
you thought that you know who you are, why you're here, etcetera or whatever, but a single photograph you discovered that had slipped into a nook of the ship has single-handedly destroyed all of the progress you've made in terms of remembering yourself.
your breath shakes just as badly as your hands, and you feel a nervous pounding in your chest accompanied by a pattern of drums in your ears.
this photo can't be real.
you repeat your name in your head. you are an astronaut, and one hell of a doctor. you are on this ship to assist in completing a mission with your co-worker, ryland grace, the only other crew member to survive the journey's coma.
co-worker.
so why the hell are you staring at a photo of the two of you kissing.
there's a little more context to it though, which actually makes everything a hundred times worse.
there's an arch decorated with an array of lush white flowers that frames you both on a sunny spring day, grace is dipping you into the kiss, a beaming expression on each of your faces as he does so. he looks happy, so you look happy, and you're also dressed in a traditional white gown while grace is wearing a tailored suit, but not black, because—
"black is boring," ryland uttered, elbow propped up onto your dining table while his chin rested on his fist. you looked up at him from your laptop where you were browsing websites to get him a suit.
"then don't wear black," you giggled. he reached for your left hand to toy with your fingers, eventually brushing a thumb over your engagement ring. "i thought you said you wanted 'traditional'," he teased.
you scoffed, "i did not say that!"
"you did say that."
"ryland."
"honey," he mocked with a smile. you grinned and smacked his hand away, tending back to your laptop.
"obviously if you don't want to do something, you don't have to do it. and i agree with you, black is boring."
ryland sighed dreamily, tilting his face into his palm after settling his elbow up onto the table again. "i love us. we're so compatible," he hummed.
you smiled shook your head a little in amusement, eyes still on your screen. "you're ridiculous."
"yeah, well, you're marrying me. probably makes you the ridiculous one."
ryland then wordlessly took the laptop from you to scroll through the options, then clicked on one of the sites. he scrolled a little more in silence, squinting slightly even though his glasses were right there that he could've put on. ryland clicked on the touchpad once more before turning the screen to you, dead serious.
"i want this one."
you blinked at the screen. he had pulled up one of the site's photos of one of their models showing off a tacky purple suit and an ugly gold tie, all pulled together by a matching purple fedora. your eyes flicked to your groom-to-be.
"now you're really being ridiculous."
"what's wrong with it?"
"you'll look like a pimp."
"nothing wrong with that," he shrugged.
you snatched your laptop back and deleted the tab with another smile and shake of your head. this time, he smiled back.
"i love you," he uttered.
you looked up again, lingering in those three words. he slid his hand towards you, palm facing the ceiling.
"i love you too," you murmured back.
you slid your hand into his, and ryland laced your fingers together, giving you a squeeze.
you thought you would carry on from there, but of course ryland had to open his mouth again; "even if i dress like a pimp?"
"oh my god."
the memory ended in a flash, and you dropped the photograph. looks like grace settled on a brown corduroy suit with a burgundy tie for a pop of colour. your own voice echoes in your head again; 'the brown will look nice in spring.', as does ryland's; 'i do look incredible in brown, don't i?'
you feel like your wedding ring is burning into your skin.
both you and grace knew you were married via your rings of course, you just couldn't remember who to yet, and it never occurred to either of you that it might've been to each other because why would it?
you take a deep breath, closing your eyes, before picking up the photo again to go find the supposed love of your life.
you navigated your way through the ship with a sense of urgency, photograph clutched in hand. when you heard a crash and a clumsy ‘uh-oh’ coming from the lab, you stopped by the doorway. suddenly the urgency disappeared. maybe this could wait until tomorr-
“who goes there?”
grace’s chair creaks when he leans back to get a peek of you hiding behind the doorframe.
when you look at him now, it all comes together.
ever since the two of you woke up from the coma, there’s been a gravitational pull that brings you two together. in terms of the mission, you operate in perfect unison and create such a steady flow that it makes everything feel oddly domestic. grace flicks a couple of switches there, you repair a part of the control panel here.
every time you both finish a task, it’s tradition to wrap it up with a high-five. however, one time when the two of you got too lost in the work, your fingers ended up intertwined and fell to your sides in a ten second hand-holding session where neither of you flinched.
as soon as the both of you realised, you each recoiled and spent a few beats staring at each other, marvelling at how natural the encounter felt like it was a subconscious effort. all grace could do was clear his throat and walk off, saying something about lunch.
“well, well, look who decided to come back,” grace quips as he wipes down a piece of equipment with a cloth. his glasses are practically hanging off of his face as they so usually do.
“y’had me thinkin’ you were going for a space walk.”
“grace.”
“without a helmet.”
“grace.”
“yeah?”
he finally looks up to see you holding out the photograph.
ryland’s hands freeze before he gently sets down the XRF analyser which looks to be like it was dropped in ramen water.
he rises from his chair, eyes refusing to peel away from the picture as he steps closer. he carefully plucks it from your fingers and slides his glasses onto his face properly to look down at it. white flowers, white dress, and a brown suit, because black is boring.
his head lifts back up to meet your nervous gaze.
“we’re married.”
it sounds like he’s saying it to himself rather than you.
you nod, trying to see through the blank stare he’s giving. dr. ryland grace, possibly one of the smartest men from earth has had his brain turned to mush by a photograph.
“you’re my…we’re-”
“married, yes, i know,” you snap.
“oh my god."
he inhales.
"oh my god..."
he blinks.
he pauses.
"oh my god-"
"grace!" you plead.
"you're my wife, and we're-”
“yes, grace, we’re married. can you please say literally anything else?”
he takes a deep breath, then suddenly hands you the photo again to start pacing around in a circle with his hands on his hips.
“grace…?”
“yeah.”
“are you okay?”
he stops, facing away from you and rubs a hand across his face.
“um…” he pivots to you on the spot, “i think so.”
you remain standing with your feet together, slightly curled in on yourself as you hold the photograph in front of you with two hands.
“do you…remember anything?”
ryland settles both hands on top of each other on the back of his head, inhaling deeply. “i’m starting to,” he says with the exhale, “do you?”
you nod. “bits and pieces.”
you drag your feet over to one of the lab tables and sit on the surface, staring down at the photo.
what now?
“i proposed to you at the beach,” ryland says.
you look up, and in his eyes, you see waves and a bright grey sky. you smile.
“you did,” you hum, setting the photo down on the table next to you. “when you got on one knee, you were too close to the water and it washed up on you so your pants got soaked.”
you giggle at the sudden memory. ryland smiles, “i don’t think i remember that part…”
“yes you do, you’re just embarrassed,” you grin. “and you stayed on one knee to ask the question because you were too proud to admit you made a mistake even though i was laughing at you.”
you’re in a fit of giggles now, and ryland just chuckles as he approaches you. his eyes land on the two bands around your finger; your engagement ring, and the basic wedding ring that so clearly matches his now that he looks closer.
suddenly, he reaches for your hand, thumb grazing over the humble gemstone on the engagement ring. your favourite gemstone, he suddenly remembers.
he lets the tender moment pass, then carefully drops your hand to place his hands on his hips.
“looks cheap. you probably deserve better.”
you give him a look before your eyes drop to the ring on your finger. you twist it a little, observing the gem from different angles.
“no…it’s actually pretty perfect,” you decide.
ryland watches you over the rims of his glasses, his heart beating quicker when he catches the complete genuineness in your tone. his eyes flick back down to the photo next to you on the table.
“we're really married, huh?"
you lift your head, gazing at him with a fond curiosity. what else could you learn to remember about this silly man?
“i guess so,” you hum.
ryland gives a nod and glances down at his own ring.
“okay…” he murmurs.
then, louder; “then let’s be scientists and figure this out.”
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𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 ryland grace & fem!reader
𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬 after learning that you and grace are married, you both decide to jog your brains in an attempt to remember who you both were as a couple before your memories were tampered with, leading to a recollection of why you're here in the first place.
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 1.8k
𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 i did not expect the last part to be received so well!! low key thought it was ahh so i was ready to sweep it under the rug but nope so here's part two yippieee!
ryland sits on his favourite spinning stool with wheels as you haul over a large white board to prop up against the wall and two white board markers. he does a little twirl in the chair before you toss a marker in his direction.
before he takes it, he spots the marker you're holding.
"i want the blue one."
you glance over your shoulder at him as you get rid of the old equations on the board with a dry eraser. with a sigh, you toss him your pen, giving him the blue while you catch the black from him. he gives you a single exaggerated nod in thanks for the trade.
"alright," you begin, "i know we'll eventually get all of the memories back, but i thought we could try get them faster by coming up with questions for us to think about together that'll help us remember more about this relationship."
"marriage," he corrects.
you internally panic, then nod. "marriage. right. sorry."
you spin around to the board and write up a heading at the top; 'WHO ARE WE?'. ryland hums in amusement.
you wordlessly jot down underneath: ‘HOW DID WE MEET?’
ryland furrows his eyebrows.
“school.”
you turn to him with a befuddled look. “what?”
“i remember that one. my school reached out to the hospital and you came in to talk to the kids about what it’s like to be a doctor.”
your writing hand falls limp at your side. the memory hits you in the face.
“why didn’t you tell me?”
“i thought you would’ve remembered!” he contended.
with a sigh, you throw the white board marker across the lab and sit down on the seat across from him. “this is stupid.”
he taps his blue pen on the table’s surface, thinking. then, he decides, “let’s just talk.”
you lift your head from being buried your hands.
“talk?”
he shrugs.
“talk. share what we each remember.”
you glance down at the wedding band on his left hand, letting out a deep exhale.
“alright.”
“yeah?”
“yeah.”
“okay,” he gives a little smile, tossing the beloved blue marker in the same direction as yours. “i’ll go first. i remember you used to pants me whenever i was winning an argument.”
“what?” you laugh.
he leans forwards on the table with a sigh.
“yup. i recall one time where you claimed that mercury is the hottest planet. common misconception.”
“it’s the closest to the sun!”
as soon as the argument comes out of your mouth, the memory of this exact conversation rushes in.
it was a sunday night. you were both in the kitchen, ryland making two peppermint teas while you sat on the counter to keep him company. he was reaching into the cupboard for a pair of mugs while responding to your false statement.
‘okay, sweetheart, yes it may be the closest, but mercury just doesn’t have the substantial atmosphere that’s needed in order to contain that much heat.”
you blinked. ‘but…’
‘no. no buts. you’re a doctor, honey. you’re smarter than this.’
with that, you frowned, then suddenly hopped off the counter to tug ryland’s sweatpants down his legs. they fell into a bunch on the floor, leaving him in his plaid boxers.
he didn’t flinch, just looked at you over his shoulder mid-tea pour.
‘really?’
you folded your arms across your chest.
‘yup.’
“i did do that didn’t i…” you say after you recall.
ryland catches the look of recognition on your face, eyeing you over the rims of his glasses with an amused smirk.
“alright, your turn.”
he pushes his glasses up his nose. you sigh, scratching the back of your neck as you jog your memory. you glance up at him.
“d’you remember how we ended up here together?”
ryland stops to think.
“they…they made me. by force.” he clears his throat at this part, but when he tries to remember where you fit into the equation, he frowns, eyebrows bunching together.
“where were you?”
you chuckle, running a palm up your arm as a self-soother. you begin to blush at the memory.
“i was already with you on the boat by that point after you demanded for me to be flown out…” you tease. “when the lab blew up, i didn’t have to be told to know that stratt would put you on the mission,” you say softly before suddenly stopping.
ryland notices the avoidance of eye contact, the glassy eyes and the tense jaw in your expression. he reaches for your hand across the desk and gives your fingers a squeeze, listening carefully.
“i nearly let you go, grace…” you whisper.
you remember his crying, his attempt of running away to god knows where, and the way he pleaded into the dirt when he was held down.
when they were taking him to be put into the induced coma, you were crying alongside him, squeezing his hand and peppering kisses all over his face, saying that it was going to be okay. stratt had convinced you that ryland would be making a courageous sacrifice for the rest of the world, but when you lost grip on his hand and he was taken from you, you approached stratt and seized her by the wrists.
‘let me go with him,’ you sobbed.
she tensed in your grasp, already visibly upset. ‘dr. grace, i am afraid that is not possible-’
‘i’ve been glued to his side practically the entire time,’ you insist, cheeks wet with tears. ‘i know the science—the stars, the astrophage, and like ilyukhina said to him, i can pick up the other stuff as i go along!’
stratt stared at you for what felt like a long time. you knew it wasn’t that simple, but if you could just make her feel like she owed you this.
‘you do understand that you would be giving up your life?’ she asked simply.
you let go of her wrists, your throat bobbed as you swallowed another cry.
‘my husband and i had plans to grow old and die together, stratt.’
your voice wobbled with every word.
‘if we can’t have the old part, at least let us have the dying part. i won’t…’ your throat tightened. inhale. exhale.
‘i won’t let you take him from me,’ you finished.
you knew then as you know now that that sentence wasn’t fair. but, she looked truly sorry.
stratt paused again for a long time, then looked you up and down. ‘you are a physician, yes?’
‘yes, ma’am.’
‘then for the record you will be designated the role of medic for the project hail mary mission.’ she turned to carl who looked like he was still staring in the direction ryland was taken in.
‘officer carl, bring her to the team and explain the situation please.’
carl snapped his head back into your direction, gave stratt a nod, and you a reassuring smile.
before being taken away, you remember flinging your arms around the other woman, squeezing your eyes shut.
‘thank you.’
she didn’t hug back, but gave an awkward pat on the back. you didn’t see that she had closed her eyes too, embracing the moment.
‘good luck,’ she whispered.
your eyes start to water, ryland’s grip only tightens on your hand. his eyes are widened ever so slightly, lips parted like he has something he wants to say.
your eyes shyly shift back to him.
“grace…?”
he can’t peel his eyes away from you. then he clears his throat.
“that- that doesn’t count…if i wasn’t there then that’s technically just one of your own memories,” he tries to jest lightly.
when you don’t laugh, he holds your gaze again, then murmurs, “you’re here because of me.”
it’s not a question. he sounds like he’s processing it. all you do is give a little nod while anxiously chewing on your bottom lip.
“if it weren’t for you, i’d be alone. ilyukhina and yao…they still wouldn’t of woken up. it’d just be me.”
ryland has stood from his seat, letting go of your hand, though his eyes haven’t left you once.
you glance down at you wedding rings. your favourite gemstone standing loud and proud on top of one of the bands. your thumb twists it a little.
“i’m not dying alone because of you.”
you stop. this makes you look up at him. because i love you, is what you want to say, but neither of you are sure how to approach that part of this dynamic just yet. so, ryland makes the first move by circling the table and suddenly scooping you up from your seat into a tight hug.
his chin rests on your shoulder, glasses hanging off his face, eyes squeezed shut. you’re too shocked to process any of it, but you eventually wrap your arms back around him, closing your eyes and melting into his warm embrace.
the security of his arms takes you back—it was a weekday after a particularly gruelling shift at the hospital. you and ryland had plans for a date, maybe the fifth or sixth. he came to your place to pick you up like the gentleman he is so the both of you could walk to the restaurant (he was still too shy to admit that he only owned a bike at this point).
when you opened the door looking just as nice as him, something came over you to see so much effort being put in for little old you. a sob left your throat, ryland panicked and immediately came closer to place his hands on each of your upper-arms. ‘what? what’s wrong? is it the tie? i wasn’t sure about it either to be honest, i just-’
‘no, no, i’m sorry, it’s just been a day…’ you whimper. ryland’s heart cracked open ever so slightly. he had bad days as a middle school teacher, so he couldn’t imagine the amount of stress you’d constantly be under as a doctor.
‘okay…okay, c’mere…’ he spoke softly before gently bringing you into his arms, squeezing tightly. you let yourself cry into his chest, shoulders shaking with each sob. ryland didn’t try to hush you, he just held you, eventually running his fingers through your hair in an attempt to comfort.
that night you ended up ordering takeout despite the reservation he had made. you two lounged on your couch, still dressed up, watching finding nemo.
your head found his shoulder when marlin and dory started bouncing around on the jellyfish.
‘the tie is ugly,’ you muttered. he smiled, then lifted an arm to wrap around your shoulder.
‘i knew it.’
you both pull away from the hug, though ryland’s hands stay firmly planted on your elbows as he looks down at you. you’re both teary-eyed, and you laugh as you push his falling glasses up his nose for him with your index finger. he smiles.
Can you do “It’s too hot to hold hands.” With Ryland Grace. Please make sure he’s pouty about it cause I know he’d be such a pouter if he couldn’t hold his s/o’s hand.
HALTED AFFECTION // ryland grace
summary: a hot day and a field trip to the zoo don't mix well with public displays of affection.
word count: 0.4k
tags: gn!reader; established relationship (ryland and reader are married); fluff.
a/n: not sure if you know this but apparently ryland is super pouty in the book?? and acknowledges it?? canon pouter!! so cute <3 anyway, enjoy!
prompt: (9) It's too hot to hold hands. (feel free to request a prompt + a character!)
Ryland is sweating through his shirt, much to his chagrin. He regrets choosing to wear his usual collared shirt over a simple (and much more appropriate) T-shirt, but he was hesitant to wear one of his embarrassing science pun shirts around a bunch of middle schoolers. He’s feeling the burden of it now.
“You look like you went for a swim,” you joke, bumping shoulders. Ryland groans, meandering through the zoo. He was hoping for a field trip to the (blessedly air conditioned) science museum, but his hopes were crushed in favor of the students collectively voting to go see stinking animals in the heat instead.
“I’m all about letting the kids make decisions on their own,” Ryland starts, “but maybe I should ask them to consider the weather instead of the benefits of STEM education next time.”
With a laugh, you glance across the trail. A group of Ryland’s students are currently crowded around a fence, staring up at a giraffe. You smile fondly.
“Unfortunately for you, most kids prefer to have fun instead of, you know, having science shoved in their faces,” you remind him. Even though you’re in the same field as Ryland, you never forget to mention to him that you really, really hated science class as a kid. The revelation came late in life for you.
Ryland rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Let me complain, okay?”
His hand nudges yours, pinkie reaching out. You make a face when his clammy hand makes a grab for you.
“What are you doing?” You ask, wiping your own sweaty hands off on your shorts. “It’s too hot to hold hands.”
Ryland’s expression looks positively miserable when you reject him. His lip juts out in an instant.
“What? Come on. Don’t do this to me,” he whines.
You shake your head, face twisted in mock disgust. “Nuh-uh. You can’t complain about how hot it is and then get all grabby.”
“It’s just our hands! That’s not so bad!”
Rolling your eyes, you bump your shoulder against your husband’s again. “Big baby,” you snort, reluctantly linking pinkies with him — your compromise of the hour. A few of his students happen to pass by at that moment, whispering to themselves and giggling when they see their sweaty science teacher pouting at his spouse. You shoot the kids a look as if to say, Mind your business, and they run off with a laugh. You turn back to Ryland, swinging your arm. “C’mon, babe. Let’s go see the foxes.”
He’s still pouting, but this time, he doesn’t complain.
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