Work Text:
Blood blood blood bloodbloodbloodbloodbloodBL-
They wake up crying, mouth full of rough blanket- an unconscious effort to muffle the sounds of their nightmare. In their most vulnerable moments, Cuyan’s main objective is to not be noticed, maybe stay alive. In the busy quarters they usually find, this is easy. It’s simply too loud to hear the broken sounds in any given bedroom. It’s less easy in a starship, curled up in a chair near a sleeping patient.
Or rather, a formerly sleeping patient. Din was awake at the first choked sob. Traveling with a baby will do that to a man. The covers are thrown back and he’s halfway out of the bed when the shock of pain up his side stops him, frozen. Tears of pain prickle in the corners of his eyes, but he swallows any noise when he realizes Cuyan is still curled in on themselves, whimpering and oblivious.
They don’t know he’s there. Maybe they don’t really know that they’re there- safe and protected by a fellow Mandalorian who’s heart aches so heavily in this moment that he thinks he might rupture the stitches holding his torso together. The moment is broken by an accusatory beeping from the end of the bed.
Kriffing droid.
“Get back in that bed!” Cuyan’s voice is rough and cracking, from sleep and fear, but they make a good show of being just fine. Totally in control. “You are injured and if you reopen those stitches, I am not doing them again.” This is a lie- they would, while singing soft lullabies in Mando’a under their breath as if that would soothe the pain of the needle.
“I heard something.” This is not a lie. “I thought we were in danger,” Thought you were in danger. “Wanted to check it out.”
Cuyan goes pale. So he heard that. “Everything is fine. I’m fine,” A telling slip, and they flinch as soon as it leaves their lips. “Go back to sleep. Do you need more medication? We have a little left.”
Those precious few drops of liquid are tempting. Slipping back into a, maybe not painless, but only mildly uncomfortable sleep… Din watches Cuyan- the tight line of their jaw, the redness in their eyes, the twitching clench-and-unclench of their hands. He can’t leave them like this. He sighs, swings his legs back into bed, and scoots to one side. “Come here.”
A long pause. “W-what?”
I’d feel better with you close. “My life is in your hands,” This is probably an overstatement. “I don’t want an over-tired medic. You need a real bed.”
“...What?”
Please. “You would tell me the same.”
They would, Cuyan concedes. And Baby, the meddling BB unit, is rocking on the floor, vision sensors flicking between the two parties. A real bed…Waking up without that ever present crick in their neck. Him. They watch Din, watching them. “...Okay.”
It’s awkward, with no eye contact (or eye-to-visor contact, in Din’s case), as Cuyan slips into the opposite side of the bed. They rest on the very edge, facing the wall. Din stares at their back, how it shakes with trembling breath. One of his hands hovers uncomfortably in the air over their waist, both ready to pull them back when they roll off the edge, and-
“What are you doing?” Cuyan faces him, one eyebrow quirked.
“I was worried you were going to fall.” Please come closer.
They narrow their eyes. “I don’t believe you.” Still, they wiggle a little more towards the middle of the bed. Almost close enough for Din to feel the heat of their body. Almost close enough to…
Cuyan shifts, suddenly, and before Din can process it, one soft hand is against the cheek of his helmet and their forehead is pressed lightly to his. Oh. It’s so gentle, so intimate, that Dyn thinks his heart might stop. It does, for a momen,t when Cuyan speaks.
“Thank you, Din.” It’s the first time they’ve said his name, and it sends a roll of electricity down his spine.
Cuyan expects him to jump away, to hit them, something, anything. The silence stretches, and they start to pull away shamefully. They do not expect Din to follow them away, grabbing their hand and pressing it to his chest. Don’t go.
His heartbeat flutters under their fingers, racing when Cuyan slips the fasteners of his shirt apart. The touch is searing hot. Somewhere in his throat, there’s a soft rumble, the start of a pleased little moan.
I would give you every star in the kriffing galaxy, Cuyan thinks, much to their own surprise. They run their fingers across Din’s hot skin, burning with the remains of infection and with the flush creeping down from under his helmet.
It hits like a blaster bolt to the gut, curling them in against Din’s chest, shaking with real sobs now. He starts for a moment, a second’s hesitation, before Din’s pulling them in closer, wrapped in both arms, crushed against his solid form. I’ll find who hurt you and I’ll kill them, Din thinks, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here before.
Cuyan slips back into sleep long before Din does. Their breathing stops shuddering, slows and evens into an almost peace. Din does not let go, thinks he might never let go, thinks maybe, just maybe, he’d be okay with that.