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“Buir?”
“Hm?” Grix replied, glancing distractedly up from the armor in his hands. His durasteel had acquired quite a layer of dirt during their last job and he was taking advantage of the downtime in hyperspace to do a thorough cleaning. He kept scrubbing, registering out of the corner of his eye as Din crossed the ship’s hold and sat down on a crate across from him.
“I’ve been thinking,” Din said, and Grix immediately set down the pauldron and gave Din his full attention. He’d gotten very good at reading his son’s voice in the time they’d known each other, and he could hear that Din was nervous. Very nervous.
“What about?” Grix asked carefully.
“The Creed,” Din replied. Grix waited, expecting him to go on, but he seemed stuck, hesitating over his next words.
“Oh?” Grix prompted, trying to sound encouraging. Din nodded firmly.
“Yes,” he said. “The rules about helmets. And when you can take them off.”
“I see,” Grix said. He kept his voice steady, not yet daring to hope. Din was too much of a traditionalist. He wouldn’t…
“You said when you first met the kid that I should take my helmet off around him,” Din said in a rush. “You were right. I’m his buir, and the Creed says that you can show your face to your immediate family. Everyone agrees on that. Even Kyr’tsad…” He stopped. Took a breath. “We’re a clan,” he said decisively. “You’re my buir, just like I’m his. I… I want you to see my face.”
Grix froze. He had been wanting this for so long, waiting and hoping that Din would bring it up, but…
“I don’t want you to do this for me,” Grix forced himself to say. It was the reason he had never asked Din about it before. He never wanted to pressure his son into doing something that he didn’t want to do. “Of course I want to see you, but don’t do it just because you think it’s what I expect from you.”
“I’m not,” Din said.
“Are you sure?” Grix said, leaning forward to stare intently into Din’s helmet. He knew that there were eyes somewhere behind that tinted glass, and for the first time he allowed himself to truly wonder what they looked like. “You don’t owe me this, Din. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Din said. “I…” he stopped and looked away, the breath he let out coming through the helmet’s modulator in a crackling rush. Then he turned back, shoulders set in a determined line. “I want this. For myself, not for you.”
Grix leaned back. It was true, he thought, stunned. It was really happening. “Okay,” he said. “Are we doing this now?”
“Why wait?” Din replied. He was trying to sound casual, but Grix knew him better than that. Din was scared, more so than Grix had heard him in a very long time, and as a father it made something twist in Grix’s chest. He wanted to ask again if Din was sure, to reassure him that he didn’t have to do this, but he held himself back. Din was an adult, and he had made his choice. All Grix could do now was wait.
For a moment, Din didn’t move. Then, slowly, he bowed his head, reaching up to take hold of the helmet with both hands. He hesitated, lingering there for just a moment, before there was a hiss of released pressure and he pulled the helmet off. At first, all Grix could see was a mop of messy dark hair on the top of Din’s lowered head. Then Din slowly raised his face and Grix met his son’s eyes for the first time.
“Hi,” Din said quietly, voice coming to Grix’s ears clear and unfiltered in a way that he had never heard it before. Grix couldn’t reply, so absorbed in taking in his son’s face that he didn’t realize how heartbreakingly vulnerable Din looked until his gaze skated away, as though unsure how to meet another person’s eyes without the comforting barrier of the helmet’s visor between them.
“Oh, ner ad,” Grix murmured, and suddenly just looking wasn’t enough. He reached out and curled a hand around the back of Din’s neck, brushing against the soft ends of his hair as Grix pulled him in to press their foreheads together. He felt a shudder run through Din at the contact and realized that this was probably too much, that Din wasn’t used to this and he would need time to adjust after so long hidden behind the protective layer of beskar. He was about to pull away and give Din his space when Din’s hand came up to rest on the back of Grix’s neck, holding him close. Din squeezed his eyes shut, a shuddering breath escaping him as he leaned almost hungrily into the touch, and for a moment Grix burned with impotent rage at whatever fundamentalist Mandalorian osi’yaim had told his son that he wasn’t allowed to have this. But this wasn’t a moment for anger, so Grix let it go, focusing instead on the warmth of Din’s skin on his and the light touch of his breath on Grix’s face.
They stayed like that for a long time. Then, finally, they pulled back, putting enough space between them that they could look each other in the eyes, though their hands lingered where they were. Grix drank in the sight of Din’s uncovered face: warm brown eyes, skin lined from years of a life that had never been easy, a mouth that twitched uncertainly up at the corner as he met his father’s gaze. Grix found his own lips curling up into an answering grin.
“There you are,” he said quietly, and Din’s timid half-smile widened into a grin that Grix thought was probably the best thing he had ever seen.