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the brains
Frozen planets aren’t really Din’s deal.
Considering the parts of the Outer Rim that he usually haunts, they really aren’t functionally different from desert worlds. Little civilization, if any. Resource scarcity. Storms ruining visibility. Dangerous fauna. No flora. Unsavory types, not including himself. Vast swaths of terrain that seem fine until a gigantic creature bursts out from under them.
His armor might be intrinsically thermoregulatory, but the chill still settles in his bones and makes him feel stiff and sore in a way that heat doesn’t. Anonymity becomes the rule when everyone else is heavily bundled in rags and interested in staying inside.
Neither are perks when he’s stuck on the backwater of Kijimi, waiting impatiently at the crumbling outskirts of Kijimiko for his contacts. At two hours of mind-(and finger-)numbing standing and pacing, he’s tempted to just go wait in a cantina to defrost and try again later.
“Hey!”
The sound of someone’s voice — finally, after just listening to whistling wind for what felt like eons — makes his head immediately snap up, squint against the sunlight reflecting off the frost.
Well. No anonymity there.
The woman approaches in hurried short slides, appearing as sleek streak of vivid red across the backdrop of snow and crumbling stone houses. The faint metallic shimmer of her bodysuit is frosted in patches, shimmering in the daylight.
She’s slightly out of breath by the time she reaches him, evidently having been hurrying to get to him (which makes Din feel a little better). “I’m Bliss,” she tell him. “I’m gonna take a risky guess that you’re the Mandalorian we’re waiting for.”
Din simply nods, then crosses his arms. For a moment, they quietly study each other through dissimilar visors.
Eventually, they speak. The terms are discussed in a detached, professional manner: Bliss negotiates. He stands there and shoots when needed. The pilot does his thing. Theoretically simple, easy.
(And yet: Din knows that if a tiny no-name cartel on a planet like Kijimi is willing to scrape together the cash to hire him, it’s pretty unlikely to be uneventful.)
When Bliss holds out her gloved fist, he looks down at it, then back up at her.
She gives a quiet chuckle, and turns it into an open hand.
They shake on it.
the other one
When he reaches for his blaster at the approaching speeder, Bliss stills him with a touch on his arm.
“Relax,” she says, then strains up to wave both her arms to the figure. “That’s our pilot!”
The fast-pilot doesn’t look to have any intention to hit the brakes on his speeder bike. He leans forward more, actually, followed by a white wave of displaced snow. The distance between them is thinning.
Din takes an alarmed step back, and then to the side.
Bliss stands her ground, though her stance lowers and her weight shifts to her heels.
“Dameron?!” she yells, now sounding increasingly concerned.
Dameron doesn’t slow down.
It’s a few agonizing moments of listening to the growing noise of the buzzing engine and wheels whirring through snow before Din gives in to his survival impulse. He throws his body as far as he can out of the way into permafrost, rolling over his head twice in an effort to get enough distance to have the bike miss.
By the time he comes up, Bliss is shielding herself with a brace of her forearms as Dameron finally does brake in front of her. The bike makes a revolution before it comes to a stop, its propulsion spraying a wide wave of snow directly at Bliss and over her head.
For a moment, she disappears in a drifting cloud of white. Then she reappears, huffing angrily as she brushes small heaps of snow off her suit.
“Damn it, Dameron! Again?!” Ah. Regular occurrence. The pilot is one of those.
Dameron’s laugh is muffled by his speeder helmet as he stumbles off his bike, buckling over and clutching his knees as it turns into gasps for air. Eventually, he straightens up. Pulls his helmet off and tucks it under his arm as he shakes his hair out.
“Sorry, beautiful. Gets you every time.”
The phrase “kriffin’ genius of a pilot” straight from the mouth of Bliss doesn’t bring to mind a human several years his junior. The young man is barely at the cusp of twenty.
He’s dressed more like a common scoundrel than Bliss in her streamlined gear, drowned in layers of neutral jackets and looping scarves around his neck and shoulders. Soft flakes of snow settle on his thick eyelashes, and the dark waved locks of his chin-length hair.
“One day, I’m going to…” Bliss trails off. She takes a deep breath, relaxes her clenched fist. Then, she gestures between the two of them. “Our Mandalorian. Dameron, our pilot.”
Dameron grins at him beatifically, his full lips surrounded by unshaven scruff.
“Call me Poe,” he says. Then, suggestively: “I’ve always wanted to know a Mandalorian.”
He’s not planning to call him that.
“First of all, he probably won’t,” pipes up Bliss, impatient. “Second of all: I think you mean ‘meet’ a Mandalorian.”
“Well, that too, but I’m hoping to ‘know’ him later.” He winks, and pulls a scarf further up his neck. His cheeky grin slowly begins to fade as he realizes Din is not going to afford him any kind of reaction.
This must be some sort of mind-game; a seduction attempt for a back-stab later. Too early; Din is suspicious off the bat. He’s seen this plenty of times. Usually to others, though. The unfamiliar flattery of being the target this time somehow feels… nice.
Bliss shakes her head, putting a hand out as a gesture. “Slow down, charmer,” she says, and Dameron scoffs. She turns to Din, and says apologetically, “Trust me. He’s really the best on the planet, if not all of Bryx.”
Din shrugs, passing his gaze between the two of them. He tells her, “I’m not being paid to question anything.”
She nods, and turns to her own speeder. “Good to hear. Let’s get moving,” she says, over her shoulder.
Dameron waggles his eyebrows at him before sliding his helmet back on.
the joyride
Inside a modded MK-4 light freighter, Din is digging his fingers into the armrests and pressing his back to the seat.
It’s not that the ship isn’t good. It’s great, actually, and the first of its make that he’s seen: Sleek, compact where it needs to be. High mobility, cargo space for whatever they’re going to haul. It’s in good shape, too. Paint’s worn on the outside and there are a few scratches here and there, but no dents and no suspiciously shiny brand-new pieces that flag to any sudden replacements.
He’d consider himself pretty good around a command console, but Bliss was right: This kid is a natural. He laughs and whoops as he makes death-defying dives and sequential blind turns that make Din’s heart race and stomach drop.
The avalanche racing after them and the trembling of the hull to the collapse of the edges of the crevasse they’re tracing have him bracing for the worst. He might have some tolerance for risk, but this is pushing it.
“You need to pull back. We’re getting too close to the cliffs,” he says, trying his best to not let his fear (inside, screaming) permeate his voice. A rumble from another crumble of nearby rockfall makes his leg jerk.
Bliss is leaning forward, a hand on the back of Dameron’s seat. She turns to look at him, and reassuringly yells over the cacophony, “Don’t worry, Poe — Dameron’s flown this way a hundred times!”
“That’s right! Like a slice of uj’alayi, baby!”
There’s a thin shimmer of sweat on Dameron’s brow and lip as his hands dart between levers and buttons, eyes caught in a squint of concentration while his mouth is twisted to a pressed smile. His shoulders mimic the movement of the ship. As it pulls up, so do his shoulders. As it swoops to the left, his head tilts and his shoulders lean. At some point during a steep nose-down descent, he even narrates with an onomatopoeia of ‘nyeeeer… voom!’
At least the pilot finding entertainment in unnecessarily dragging them close to death by icy freighter crash.
the ambush
There are only nine large crates in this cache, hardly enough to fill half of the narrow cargo hold of the MK-4 (Dameron refers to it as ‘The Quickie’, which neither Din nor Bliss are willing to acknowledge).
It’s almost a kilometer between the hidden cave they’re offloading from to where the freighter is parked. Having a hauler that can at least propel the cargo for them does help, but they’re still stuck escorting the floating platform in inclement weather and trying not to break their ankles on the frozen, rocky path. This is only the first trip of three, considering its maximal capacity.
For whatever reason, Din and Bliss have to suffer from Dameron’s incessant whining that the load doesn’t ‘feel’ right.
When the transporter jostles over a tight corner of the mountain corridor, Dameron raises a hand to his ear. “You hear that? Since when do bags of spice sound like that?”
“Maybe they’re packed in metal boxes?” Bliss postulates, already bored with his train of thought.
“Oh yeah?” he challenges, as if she’s actually debating with him and not just humoring him. “Do they sound hollow to you? I’d call that more of a ‘bang’ than a rattle.”
“Can you cool it with the conspiracy theories, Poe?” At this point, Bliss has given up with calling him by his last name for the sake of professionalism. “What if we’re not moving spice? Is it really that big of a deal?”
“What if we’re supplying weapons to someone who shouldn’t have them?” shoots Dameron back, accusatory.
“Hey, genius. The spice we run kills people, too.”
At this point, Dameron is ignoring her in favor of craning his head back at him. He imploringly asks, “How about you, Mando? Don’t you care what we’re loading here?”
“Are you seriously asking a Mandalorian that?” The awe of his stupidity seeps into her voice.
“Not really,” Din answers him off-cuff. His focus is trained directly on the mist of snow in front of them.
“Wow, Zorii! Stars forbid I think of people as individuals! With opinions!”
He’s still looking expectantly at him, as if he expects some sort of ‘thank you’ or compliment. Din pointedly doesn’t give him one.
Instead, he keeps looking. It’s not easy for Din to see in the snowfall. It takes him a moment to be sure: Those shades are moving.
His companions fall silent when Din holds his hand up in the air, tilts two fingers forward, then presses one to his helmet. They draw their arms, and follow him, staying low, as he circles around the hauler for cover.
They all methodically advance as it slowly chugs along, blasters trained around its periphery to the blind point ahead.
The figures that emerge from the snow aren’t the tailing thugs they were expecting. Four bounding, bouncing goat-like creatures (white coats, split hooves, tusks along with horns) diverge as a group as they scramble and slide around the thin strip of ground around their cover and disappear into the cloud behind them.
Bliss and Din keep cautious, barely flinch as they keep their aim. Dameron doesn’t. He quietly laughs, relieved, as he lowers his blaster. “Oh, they’re just —”
“— kark!” he yells, interrupted, as a red glow shoots through the white air fires well above their heads. One hand slams on the stop on the hauler, as he brings his other back up.
The world explodes in blaster fire.
Their cover might be an advantage (he’s not worried about magnetized trimantium getting a few hits), but neither Bliss nor Dameron knows what they’re aiming at. To be fair, neither do their unknown opponents. Shots sizzle through cold air, bounce off the crates, and sear icy walls.
Din flips through the scope modes on his Amban until the universal foreground of white becomes blue, the subzero temperatures reflected in the thermal imaging. Within the field there are moving blotches, holding their ground as variably yellow-red humanoid shapes.
“Five of them,” he says, raising his voice above the nonstop blips of blaster shots.
“How do you know?!” Dameron is ducking now, trying to blow his overheated blaster cool as he passes it between his hands. Din notes to remind him later of the snow underneath his feet.
Aiming carefully, Din points at at the closest, biggest one. When he squeezes the trigger, there’s a muffled scream cut short. The colors of the figure disintegrate into nothing.
Someone yells, “Bastards!”
“Four,” Din emends.
“Nice one,” Bliss commends him, and then looks upward. She points at something, a small object flying through the air only barely different than the ambient temperature in his scope’s field. Then, she starts to back away. “What’s — incoming!”
He doesn’t risk a moment. Din throws his arms around both Dameron and Bliss, and throws them back into a snowdrift.
A silent moment, as they huddle in a pile under snow. He can feel Dameron straining against his arm as he tries to sit up; he keeps him pinned down, wary even as time ticks by and the snow settles.
Then: Boom! The earth shakes, and there’s a whip of air above their heads as the snow flies off of them. There’s an unpleasant shower of ice and stone on their backs, and Din’ ears are currently deafened by a flat buzz, but he’s fine. They’re all fine.
He peers warily out of their heap. There’s a crater of molten ice where the explosive landed, so close to the transport it’s nearly underneath it. Luckily, the crates hover where they left them (he might want to get one of those for his own ship).
Now their four adversaries — dressed similarly to Dameron, likely local competitors, or collaborators — are visible to the naked eye. They stalk slowly but purposefully to their position, blaster rifles posed in front of their faces.
Moving as little as he can, Din aims his sight in their direction. Then, up. There’s an outcropping of stone still above their heads, heaped with snow. He fires a pulse at it.
By the time the smugglers start screaming, they’re already being swept away and off the mountain under a roiling torrent of white and grey.
They all stay pressed low as the world shakes around them, the passage ahead churning up a gigantic cloud of displaced ice for an entire minute.
Eventually, deafening rumble lowers, turns into a quiet crumble. The air begins to clear. The most audible sounds are Bliss and Dameron’s groans, as well as the whistle of the cold wind.
With a grunt, Din picks himself up (after not-so-gently displacing Bliss’ leg from his torso), brushing off the snow crusting over his armor as he comes unsteadily to his feet. As far as he can see: No life is present up ahead. Nothing is present up ahead, really, considering that he managed to block off access to the path through that efficient shot. There’s only a gigantic heap of precarious stone and ice, a little rockfall completely cutting it off.
At least the cargo is fine. It hovers only a few meters away, miraculously unscathed.
“Hmph.”
He puts his pulse rifle on his back, and turns. Bends at his waist, offering his hands to his two teammates. Bliss takes it immediately; it takes a still-moaning Dameron a few moments to lazily grab it. He pulls them up, and takes a step back while they (mainly Dameron) recompose themselves.
As he’s the only one without a helmet, opting for wrapping a scarf around his head instead, he looks half-frozen. Pink nose and cheeks, white eyebrows and eyelashes. His teeth chatter when he states the obvious, “C-cold.”
Bliss wordlessly pulls her snow-coated pack off her back, brushes it off, and fishes in it up to her elbow. In just about three seconds, she pulls out a can with a nozzle and hands it to Dameron, whose hands tremble as he grasps the object.
“Here, you big baby. I keep telling you to wear something more protective…”
He shakily uncaps it, pulls his scarf away from his face and sprays around it. He moans (a little too loudly and enthusiastically), as the ice on his facial hair melts and the color spreads back to normal on his face.
Thermal spray. She’s evidently come prepared for this exact scenario.
Dameron, now significantly better, caps it and hands it back to her. He gives an exaggerated shrug. “Thanks, babe. But you know, I’d hate to take this,” he slides a hand down the side of his face and down his neck, “away from you two.”
“You’re too sweet,” Bliss says sarcastically. She shakes the can, shakes her head as she doubtlessly realizes how much he used, and drops it back in her pack.
“Gotta thank you for saving our ass, Mando. Buddy.” Dameron shoots him that wide grin, again. It’s warm, flirtatious. He still doesn’t trust it. “You got some damn good reflexes for combat.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” he says, simply. As secretly tempted he is to bask in Dameron’s praise, he pulls his gaze away. Looks at Bliss instead, for further orders.
“Guess we’ll have to take the alternative route,” says Bliss, yanking her head back the way they came. “The longer one.”
“Sorry,” Din says. He’s well aware of the inconvenience he caused. “Less risk than picking them off.”
“Don’t apologize,” Bliss says.
“It’s all good,” Dameron says, speaking over her.
the caf break
Yes. Poe Dameron, much to his surprise, is a very good pilot.
He’s managed to shake the four freighters that have been tailing them the second they lifted off Kijimi with the entirety of the shipment without so much as a scratch.
(Well, the ship did take hits, but Dameron claims that because they were still undocking that it was ‘cheating’ and didn’t count).
Din doesn’t do jealousy, nor unnecessary competition, but he’s not going to lie to himself and say he’s comparable in his ship handling to him. He’s planning on humbling himself and absorbing some of Dameron’s skills for the duration of the cross-sector leg of the flight.
But first: Caf.
It shouldn’t be that much surprise to him when he finds Bliss sipping some, herself, in the mess hall. Except it is, because her helmet is off and settled next to her (not that either of them can drink through their helmets).
She’s 100% caught off-guard, blue eyes wide and mug halfway to her pursed lips. Then, her gaze darts between her helmet and Din, as she lifts it fully and takes a long sip.
“Was I not supposed to see this?” he asks, mindful, gesturing at her face.
Bliss shrugs, then settles the half-empty mug down.
“It’s fine,” she says. He’s not sure if the indifference in her voice is or isn’t feigned. “I don’t have a religious objection to it like you do.”
It’s more complicated than that, but that’s not relevant.
“Sorry,” he says, simply. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Where else would I be?” she asks. Before he can answer, she closes her eyes and sighs. Opens them. “I don’t mean to snap your head off. Here for caf?”
“I’ll have some later,” he says, and gestures up at his own helmet. She gives a lopsided smirk at that, and Din smiles under his own helmet.
“Hey, have a seat.” She gestures to the one across from her. “Unless you have somewhere to be?”
“Where else would I be?” he echoes, as he takes a few steps forward and does just that.
They sit, regarding each other quietly.
“Honestly?” She gives a short laugh. “I’m not sure what I’m allowed to ask you.”
“You’re ‘allowed’ to ask me anything. Whether you get an answer…” Din shrugs.
“Alright.” She points a finger. “What’s your name?”
Din shakes his head.
“You take off your helmet when you bathe, right?”
“Sometimes.”
Bliss wrinkles her nose. “How’s Mandalore like?”
“Hot. And…” he trails off. Those who lived and died there come to his mind. “…I don’t want to talk about it.”
She nods. “Alright. You live on Tatooine? Being a guild member, and all.”
Not too invasive. Din answers, “Right now, yeah.”
“You like it?”
“What do you think?” Barren drought-ravaged hellscape, with a long and storied history of slavery.
“I’m gonna take that as a hard ‘no’,” Bliss says, smirking. She pauses, and drums her fingers on the table as she tries to think of a viable question.
“You like it in Kijimi?” Din pipes in, because it feels like he’s supposed to. Also, to get her attention off of his history.
Bliss seems flattered by the question, anyway. Quietly: “It’s what Poe and I know. The Kijimi Spice Runners have given us an opportunity to work ourselves out of here.”
“And yet, you’re still here,” he says. As it leaves his mouth, Din becomes aware of how callous it sounds.
“For now,” she says, with a shrug. “We’re treated well, compared to other gangs on the planet. You’ve met them.”
Right. The ones he’s shot and buried in ice.
“Did you grow up with him?” he asks. People have a tendency to get looped up in these things together.
“No,” she says. For a moment, there’s something wistful in her eyes. “We met when he joined… four years ago? I was involved almost since I could walk. We just,” she glances at her fiddling hands and then back at him, “hit it off, I guess.”
As if it wasn’t already obvious they had a history.
There’s something that’s been playing at the back of his mind. Din shouldn’t care. But he does. “What’s his deal with me?” he blurts.
“What?” Bliss blinks innocently, feigning ignorance. “The non-stop, shameless flirting?”
“Sure.” That’s an accurate way to describe it. “Does he do that to everybody?”
“Not everybody,” she says. She plays with the rim of her cold caf, absently. “Not nobody, either. He did that to me when I met him, too. I think it’s just his default behavior when he spots an attractive person who intimidates him.”
Good thing she can’t see him balk at that. “Attractive, how?”
“What can I say? He has a thing for helmets.” She slaps her hand on hers. “It’s a kind of… coping mechanism-slash-overcompensation thing. He tries a little too hard until he gets used to you.”
A pause. Din tries to parse this as an actually legitimate (mutual) attraction. There’s a frown playing at the corners of Bliss’ mouth, her brow furrowing as she also processes this.
Her tone switches to methodical, slow. “Anyway… Poe’s fun, sure. He’s not much more than that.”
That’s obviously a deflection. A sudden one, at that.
“Getting a feeling you’re just saying that,” he points it out, as unaggressive as he can.
Her brows raise, as if she’s surprised she’s caught. “Alright… I am. Poe’s not dumb,” she says, then pauses. Shrugs. “Actually, no, he is dumb. But he’s so much more than that.” There’s passion, there. Bitterness, too.
“I thought you said he’s not much —”
“That was a borkin’ lie.”
There’s nothing more to gain from this line of conversation, not without pushing too many of her buttons. Din bows his head at her, respectfully, and raises from his seat to leave.
“Poe’s heart is too soft for the likes of you.” Bliss keeps speaking. He recognizes the tone in her voice not as malicious, but protective. Guarded. She adds, even softer: “Or me, for that matter.”
“Yeah,” he says. Maybe. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Regardless, he can get caf later. Takes the path towards the crew cabins, instead.
Behind him: “You break him, and I break you.”
“Sounds fair,” he acquiesces. It really does.
the invitation
“…so I ended up having to make an emergency landing. Vendara’s all swamp, so I had to pay some locals to dig my ship partway out of the mud so I could just take off.”
Dameron is so easy to amuse that Din is almost certain he’s intentionally flattering him, laughing at any anecdote and hanging onto his every word as if he’s some kind of brilliant storyteller. He’s doing it right now, slapping his knee to what Din considers unspectacular anecdotes about his routine flights.
It’s hard to believe anyone really wants to be around him, let alone someone like Dameron.
He laughs. “Sounds to me like you need a new ship, buddy!”
“Nah, that was a fluke. I found the remains of a Gungan stuck in the engine blades.” The memory, as stressful as it was, is pretty amusing in hindsight. Dameron sucks air through his teeth at the mental image, more sympathetic than him. “But, yeah. I might be looking to get my hands on another gunship.”
Dameron swivels his chair towards him, interest suddenly piqued.
“Something shiny?” Dameron leans forward. “Are you looking for a new model?” There’s hair hanging in front of his face; he tucks it, absentmindedly, behind his ear. “Man, I gotta tell you, I’ve seen the schematics for Incom’s new generation and it’s,” he pinches his fingers, then kisses them.
Din can’t muster up half of the interest that he has for ship models. He’d just go along with Dameron’s train of thought if his mouth wasn’t suddenly very, very dry. Dameron’s excitement about corporate ship manufacturers (of all things) has his eyes open wide and manic, posture tense and enraptured.
Dameron face peers directly into Din’s helmet, closer than ever. Din resists the impulse to look away.
“No. Something… else.” Suddenly, he’s struggling to find the right words. Lamely ends up with, “I want something with a history.”
“Something special?” Dameron asks. He tilts his head, letting his hair fall down over his cheek. It’s attractive.
“Yeah.” Din swallows. “Something special.”
The silence that falls feels suffocating. Dameron’s eyes flick quickly across his armor, and then back at his helmet.
“Hey,” he says, softly. Then asks, “Can I kiss you?”
“No,” Din immediately replies, taken aback. He doesn’t need to think about it. “You can’t.”
Dameron’s smile falls slightly, and confusion settles into his brow. “Well, why not?”
“I…” He’s not sure if he’s serious or not, if he just never knew and missed the rules of his creed. The silliness of the question has him speaking in clipped tones, irritated. “I’m not taking off my helmet. I don’t,” he emphasizes, “for anyone.”
Bliss’ allegations of stupidity are drifting back into his immediate memory.
His incredulous expression smooths out in only a second; he’s back to smiling, batting his eyelashes. His tone is all blasé when he says, “Hey, man. That’s cool. Can I kiss your helmet?”
He looks at Din expectantly, seriously waiting for an actual answer.
“Why would you even want to?” he asks, slowly.
“Frankly, I think it’s kind of sexy.” His tone lowers, subtly. “I think you’re kind of sexy.”
“I think you think that a lot of things are,” and Din’s doing finger-quotes before he even realizes he’s doing it, “‘kind of sexy.’”
Dameron gives a little bark of laughter, shaking his head widely. Tousling his hair; intentionally, probably.
“Are you calling me easy? Because I totally am.” He takes the accusation in stride. Again, he asks, “Anyway, can I kiss you? And by ‘you’, I mean the parts of you that are available.”
“Not right now,” Din tells him. The predominant reason is still sitting in the mess hall.
“Later?”
“I don’t know.”
“Alright.” Satisfied, Dameron rotates his chair back towards the control panel. He thumbs backward. “You know where to find me.” It’s a clear-cut invitation, but it’s better than him barging into Din’s quarters.
They both watch the holographic projection of map. The tiny little red dot representing the freighter moves glacially across the programmed chart.
“What does Bliss think about this? About you?” Din blurts out, genuinely bothered by the thought.
Din expects him to be surprised, or uncomfortable. Instead, Dameron shoots him an amused glance.
“Did she talk to you?” When Din doesn’t respond, he just laughs and shakes his head. “Right, of course she did. Zorii’s just looking out for me. I’ve sometimes bit off more than I can chew…” he loses track of the metaphor, “with people… uh. Yeah!”
“Right,” says Din. He’s not fully assured, but it’s something.
“Right! She’ll only shoot you if you try to kill me in my sleep. Or propose marriage.”
“In your sleep?” he asks, dryly.
“Including, but not limited to, my sleep,” he says, cheerfully. “Anyway, seriously, let me tell you about what they’re doing with routing systems for exhaust reuse…”
the detour
“You’re so tense,” Dameron says, hands rubbing slow and firm circles on Din’s shoulders.
It might be the stress of getting here: Forcing his fixation on presenting himself as perma-aloof out so he could awkwardly knock on the door of Dameron’s quarters. Getting his helmet sloppily kissed (which was hot, until he realized he’d have to get a cloth to clean it) and then insisting that Dameron not to do it again. Spending an annoying number of minutes of him trying to pull off his armor, until finally doing it himself in thirty seconds flat. Hiding in his closet to take off his own shirt, just to be sure there wouldn’t be an accidental reveal.
Yet, Din is here. Hips pinned to Dameron’s bed by his weight, his legs straddled to either side of him. Back of his helmet pressing into soft bedsheets, heavy. Feeling too vulnerable. Can’t loosen up, not even with a warm (well-muscled, unscarred, gorgeous) body stretching languidly over his. With Dameron looking hotly down at Din, hair mussed, pressing his still-clothed firm ass back into his crotch as he casually massages him.
Din’s fingers twitch with pain when Dameron starts to work out a tough little knot of muscle. He hums a tone of affirmation as he locates that spot, then presses his thumb into it. The sudden pressure and twist of him grinding out that spot is satisfying, but it stings. Makes Din’s knee jump.
Near-instinctively, Din’s hand grabs at Dameron’s. There’s no force in it, but the intent is clear. Dameron nods and pulls his hand away, leaving behind a noticeably still-sore shoulder.
Well, noticeable until his hands slide from Din’s neck down his chest, catching at his nipples as he straightens up. Noticeable until Dameron’s hips grind in lazy circles, looking down at him with a bit lip.
“All good. I got other ways of making you relax.”
“Yeah?” Din asks, breathlessly. He props himself up on an elbow, raises his hand up to his face. Dameron cups his hand, and leans into his touch. Guides him a little, sliding his fingers over his cheek, through his short beard. Has Din’s fingers run across his soft, full bottom lip before he pulls them away.
“I think so,” Dameron says. He bends at his waist and kisses at Din’s chest as he slides his body down from his hips to his legs, lower on the bed. Those lips and his prickly facial hair tingle as they drag down his bare skin, stopping to peck a final kiss at the corner of his hip.
He’s not sure what to do with his hands here. They’re left awkwardly by his side as Dameron undoes his buttons and hooks his fingers in the waistband. He prolongs shimmying Din’s pants down his hips, relishing the moment his mostly-hard cock bounces as the fabric of his pants is pulled past it.
Dameron pulls on him experimentally, lightly slaps the heft of him onto his palm. Looks up at Din, mischievous, as he licks a wide stripe from the base of his balls to the tip of his cock — then envelopes him. The wet, soft heat wretches an uncontrolled groan out of Din, and a shudder when Dameron laughs around him.
It’s immediately obvious that the man is really good at this, blows Din like it’s a performance. He wrenches the breaths and moans out of him as he wraps a hand around his base, pulls and twists at a steady tempo to the quick bob of his head.
Looks down, and notices his hand reaching down underneath him, pulling himself out of his bright red briefs and jerking himself off. When Dameron moves his hand back to duck his head deeply on him, contracting his throat around his cock as his lips press all the way until his nose is buried in his pubic hair, Din holds back a strangled groan. Opens and closes his hands, uselessly.
(Vivid flashes of imagination come to his head of Dameron with his many former lovers. Humans, near-humans, non-humans. He wonders what he’d do with other equipment; thinks of Bliss sitting on his face, before he shakes it out of head.)
Din isn’t that experienced. Not that he hasn’t been with people; he has. Fellow Mandalorians, but he can count them on one hand. The last time was years ago, and it wasn’t nearly this good; a quick handjob here and there on a job in Savareen, not much else. It’s not like they could give anyone oral as they are.
“I wish I could suck you off,” he pants aloud. He imagines reciprocating, having Dameron arch under his mouth. Salivates a little, at the thought.
Another laugh — wow — around his dick. There’s a little lewdly wet noise as his cock pops out of Dameron’s mouth, and the squelches as he continues to stroke him. His lips are wet with saliva, pink and attractive. “Hey, me too,” he teases.
He lets go of Din’s cock, and straightens up; lets him admire his wet chin and flushed face, head of his cock jutting from his underwear, before he unstraddles him and jumps off the bed. Din’s head hits back against the pillow, letting out a small huff of frustration.
“One sec!” Dameron yells, off to the side. Din stares up at the short, paneled ceiling as he listens to Dameron fumbling around his quarters. “Where is it? Oh, duh.” More rustling.
Cheeky, he twists a plain metallic tube of lubricant in his fingers as he comes back. He’s kicked off his briefs, cock bobbing between his legs when he moves to straddle them around Din’s. A light sheen of sweat has gathered on his abdomen, his forehead; makes him look dewy, fresh under the dim fluorescent light.
Din passively lies back and enjoys the show. How Dameron’s chest rises in soft breath, eyes squinting in concentration as he scissors slippery fingers inside himself. How his own hard and still-shiny cock sits in the foreground as Dameron tilts his head up and drops his jaw in a silent moan when he hits a spot inside himself. The cool slick of his hand on it when he strokes him, lubes Din up as well.
They both emit low sighs when Dameron finally lifts his hips, guides Din inside of him. He looks down at himself, mouth hanging open in transparent pleasure, and strokes himself as he leverages his weight with a hand on Din’s chest. Dameron rides him like this, guiding the pace as slow and steady even when Din’s hands settle on his moving hips.
It doesn’t take that long for Din’s toes to curl, balls draw up, feeling that whole-body tension begin to peak. “I,” he groans, his warning lost in the haze.
“Yeah. Yeah, c’mon buddy,” urges Dameron, hoarse, as he sinks down his full length. Clenches, to urge him on in that too-tight heat. There’s that wet slapping noise of his hand he works himself harder and faster, eager to get himself sooner rather than later.
So, he does. Din chokes out a groan as his balls spasm, spilling deep inside him with a few short stutters of his hips upward. Watches, still racked with the aftershocks of pleasure, at the sight of Dameron lifting his hips high enough to let his come-covered cock slip out of him. He watches him quickly and efficiently jerk himself off, eventually splattering come on Din’s chest with a whole-body shudder.
They look at each other. Messy, panting, satisfied. Dameron laughs, breathlessly, and swoops the hair pasted to his forehead back before flopping to beside Din on the bed.
Oh, right. The king-sized bunk is definitely not factory standard.
Eventually, their breathing settles. Sweat and come begin to cool unpleasantly on Din’s skin; he imagines the same for Dameron, as he feels him fidget awkwardly. Din looks at him. Dameron is just watching the ceiling.
A bitter sense of realization: Dameron wants him to leave. Which — is fine, makes sense, he wants to take off his helmet and wash himself off, but.
“I’m gonna go,” Din says, slowly. Pulls himself up (though his body protests, really wants to lie there lazily), and steps off Dameron’s bed.
“Cool with me,” says Dameron, cheerful. He doesn’t look at him, not even when he’s pacing around his quarters looking for dislodged clothing and his beskar gear. “Catch you later.”
Somewhere in the back of his head, Din wishes it wouldn’t be cool with him.
the interlude
When Din pokes his head out of his quarters the day after, he’s greeted by the sound of enthusiastic chatter from the mess.
Catches a few snippets, Bliss and Dameron bouncing back and forth:
“… you’re telling me he…?”
“…was pretty sweet, actually…”
“…honestly, I thought he was…”
“…think he wanted to stay…”
Din debates whether he should actually walk in and interrupt their conversation about him, maybe even engage with them.
Self-consciousness wins out. He decides, no, he’ll just hide out in his quarters for an hour and pretend he’s asleep until Dameron heads to the cockpit to cancel the autopilot.
He stealthily steps back inside, slaps the button to shut his door after him. The sound of the shutter clicking is a few decibels too loud; he winces.
A moment of silence. Then, the muffled sound of their hysterical, snorting laughter.
the deal
This isn’t going as planned.
Apparently whoever is the actual leader of the Kijimi Spice Runners, and Bliss’ current boss, had told her what they expected the shipment to yield. They didn’t, however, discuss it with the prospective buyer.
There’s a flicker of unpleasant surprise in her posture when the negotiator (an indigo-skinned bald Genian in an extravagant silver dress, towering three heads above her) tells Bliss that.
Now, she’s being told that they are only going to pay her a price a fifth as much as she expected, and being laughed at as she’s being told otherwise. They’ve even had the audacity to insist on it despite actually opening one of the crates, and ‘sampling’ a pinch of that glass-white spice.
(Bliss was right; the bags of spice were just packed in metal boxes. Unnecessarily ornamental ones.)
The guards around the negotiator — also well-dressed — are looking antsier and antsier, holding their blasters forward. Din watches one of them stroke the trigger.
He turns to look at Dameron, and sees beads of sweat dripping down his temple. His hand, holding his blaster, is shaking slightly. He turns back to watch the deal again.
Din watches Bliss raise her heel, and tap it twice on the stone tile.
Click-click.
In a blink of an eye: Bliss draws her blasters from her hip and shoots the Genian negotiator in her stomach, as Din grabs Dameron’s hip and throws them behind the nearest cargo tug.
Raising his Amban from the safety of his cover, Din immediately disintegrates the one running at Bliss with a vibroblade and cuts his warrior yell short.
Before the negotiator’s limp body falls to the floor, she grabs it with the curl of her arm around its neck. The immediate volley of fire from the lackies pummels and shakes the corpse, as Bliss shields herself and backs away towards their cover.
By the time Bliss joins them, Dameron has joined Din in returning fire. She dumps the body unceremoniously to the side, now more secure. The thump! of it hitting the ground makes Dameron yelp.
Dameron does look shaken, now that Din looks, eyes wide with surprise and hands trembling horribly. No wonder all of his shots keep missing. He yells, distraught, “Why’d you do that?!”
“It was us or them, Poe!” Bliss yells back. She winces when plasma burns a hole through their cover, and immediately peeks out of cover to shoot back. The firing Genian screams as the two shots sizzle through his body. His nearest neighbor yells in alarm, and then immediately turns into dust with a squeeze of Din’s trigger.
This is apparently enough to spook the rest of them. One of the remaining five announces, “To hell with this, I’m out!”
Resisting the urge to shoot him in the back, Din watches him frantically sprint into the light of the open gate of the hangar. The rest of his buddies follow suit; one of them even tosses her gun to run.
All that’s left is them, three bodies, two piles of dust, a ruined cargo rig and the completely unscathed crates of spice. Bliss and Din step over the body and cautiously walk out to examine the damage. Dameron continues to sit behind cover, face in his hands and shaking his head.
Din looks at the crates, then back at Bliss. He asks her, “So. What now?”
She shrugs. Her voice is self-assured and completely lacking in worry when she tells him, “Don’t sweat. I thought this would happen.”
“Oh, sure you did,” goes Dameron’s voice from his hiding place, sarcastic.
Annoyed, she says, “Yeah, I did. 'Drizzle' is always on demand on this planet.” She shrugs, and then pats the crates. “Corporate big-wigs and their parties. I might’ve already gotten in touch with two alternative buyers.”
“Good planning,” Din commends.
“Huh.” Dameron is peeking his head out, now. Impressed, he says, “You might get a promotion for this, Zorii.”
“I better,” she says smugly, “but hold off on that thought until we’ve actually finished the deal. We might get this shab again.” Then, she starts to fish for the comlink in her pack.
Dameron stands and brushes himself off, and Din opts to pace to look for a convenient nook of the hangar to hide the bodies (and maybe a broom, to also hide the bodies).
“Hello, Itark’de. It’s Zorii Bliss, from Kijimi. I spoke with you last month?” A pause. “Yes, that was me. It just so happens we’re on Genian right now…”
the goodbye
The Plan B deal didn’t pay as much as they originally wanted with the first offer — which, while Dameron complained, both Bliss and Din expected — but the margin was small enough for Bliss to happily portion out his (actually pre-arranged) share. None of them were even shot at, this time.
Payment for services rendered. That’s his criteria for a successful job. Right now, his bag is significantly heavier with the welcome addition of high-denomination credit chips. A win in his book.
Right now, Genian’s hot winds are whipping against his back, making his cape fly out in front of him. In front of him stands Bliss and Dameron, who is desperately trying to keep his gauze scarf from whipping his face.
The MK-4 stands behind the two of them, looking just as nice and shiny as the day Din first saw it.
Bliss cocks her head. The desert sun makes her armor especially vibrant, the glare on her helmet almost painful to look at. “Want a ride back?” she asks, casually. In his opinion, out of polite obligation.
Din shakes his head. “No, I left my own ship on Tattooine.” He feels the need to add, “Easier for me to get a passenger trip from here than Kijimi.”
Unlike Kijimiko, Bruit is an actual trade hub with frequent traffic, and not just a pit-stop. He wouldn’t have to suffer being stuck on a planet (with them) for a week or more. He’d much prefer waiting in this weather, anyway.
“I guess this means goodbye,” Dameron pipes in. His smile is tighter than usual, close-lipped.
Din nods. “Guess so,” he says, suddenly feeling melancholy. He knows he shouldn’t care.
“Thanks for the assistance,” says Bliss, simply. She holds out her hand, and bows her head when he steps up to shake it.
She takes a step away, and lets Dameron take her spot. For a second, Din is convinced that Dameron is going to hug him; he can see a rise of his shoulders, the slight lift in his arms.
Instead, he also offers his hand. Tilts his head; his expression is still strangely disaffected. Din steps in to take it.
Dameron’s eyes widen when instead of the same bog-standard handshake, Din strokes a gloved thumb across his palm. Then, the ice thaws. That feigned smirk turns into a real smile, wrinkling the corner of his eyes.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Dameron tells him.
“Good luck with getting off Kijimi,” Din says.
Dameron’s smile falls, just as quick. So does his grip. Din just takes a step away from him, and turns on his heel. Walks away in quick, certain paces.
He doesn’t look back, not even when he can hear Bliss’ confused “wait, what did he say?” behind him.
epilogue
Nevarro is technically an upgrade from Tatooine.
Not a huge upgrade. It’s yet another barren drought-ridden hellscape smack-dab in the periphery of the galaxy, with extra volcanic activity thrown on top as well.
But he can park the Razor Crest reasonably sure that it won’t be dismantled (Jawa permitting), hasn’t seen people being led around in chains (for the most part), and nobody is dying on the streets from dehydration (from gunshot wounds, a little less).
There’s a bounty puck in front of him, projecting an image of a nondescript human male. His shoulders are covered by an innocuous pilot jacket, but Din can spot the tell-tale high, charcoal collar of a First Order uniform peeking out from it. No insignia. No rank prepending his name in the description, either.
“Mm. No, I don’t think so,” he says, and pushes it back across the table towards Greef Karga. Behind him, the chatty table of three Guild members pauses to eye the bounty, interested.
“Are you sure, Mando? I think this would fall perfectly into your wheelhouse.” Greef gestures imploringly to the price of the bounty, then taps the puck. “It’s a very handsome sum, as well.”
An assassination of an authority of the First Order is risky. Not that the act would be much riskier than his other jobs — it may or may not be — but the repercussions are much more concerning. He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life avoiding their systems more than he already does.
“I don’t want to get involved with anything political,” Din says, non-committal. “What else do you —?”
Greef cuts him off, jerking his head to the spot behind him. “Oh! Why, hello.” He smiles amiably at them, then glances back at Din. “It’s your prospective employer.”
Din sighs, not even bothering to turn around. He lifts his hand, and waves away it dismissively. “Look, I said I’m not interested.”
“Yeah, buddy?” That voice. The uncertain familiarity makes his skin prick under his armor. “How about making an exception for an old friend?”
He has a feeling he knows who it is, well before he throws his arm over the back of his chair to turn. Still holds his breath in preparation right before he does…
…and exhales, when he sees it’s Dameron, Poe, in the flesh. As if he could ever forget that smile of his after all these years. Older now, no longer baby-faced, but just as handsome. At worst, he might look a little tired. Somebody’s been making him clean up and cut his hair.
The jumpsuit? That’s new. Shocking, even, considering that it’s the token vibrant orange and white of the Resistance pilots. Heads swivel towards them: Poe, obviously in the wrong damn place on the wrong damn planet. Din for being called his ‘friend’ (reasonably interpreted as ‘collaborator’).
Still, there’s a warm bloom forming in Din’s chest just by looking at him.
There’s also an unexpected pang of guilt: Poe drastically changed his life. Right now, he can plainly see that Din hasn’t.
(And now he wants to pay him for it, personally.)
“I might entertain the idea,” he slowly says. After all, the terms have changed.
That smile expands into a wide grin. Dazzling. Poe bows his head, and looks through his thick eyelashes. “Maybe a discount, too? Pretty please?”
“Don’t push it,” Din immediately snaps back, but he’s smiling under his helmet. Greef chuckles behind him.
This one might be worth the risk.