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Another busted hose starts hissing above your head but you barely flinch as you undo another panel and drop it, letting it clang to the floor of the hold.
Finding the last spare hydraulic coil, he closes the door on his tool compartment. He doesn't like the idea of you perched on the ladder, wedged into the tight space, half of your body hidden among the wiring, injured as you are, but he’s stopped trying to reason with you.
"I have the part,” he sighs. “Let me do this."
Whether you ignore him or don’t hear him, he can’t tell.
He sees when you try and hide your wince as you brace your weight on your sore arm, stretching yourself just a little higher on the tips of your toes to get a better look. He sees the ladder wobble and he automatically reaches out to steady it.
"I see the problem," you crane your neck and reach inside the opening. Using your weight to tug something heavy out of the way, you grunt, body lurching. Peering around the sparking wires, you reach further, "What if we just-"
He looks up and it all happens very fast. A large bundle of flickering wires fall out of nowhere, missing your head by the tiniest margin. You recoil, and one of your boots slips from its perch. You manage to grasp the top rung of the ladder at the last second but now your weight is unbalanced and there's no stopping it. Over the sound of your yelp, there is a sudden growl from the modulator below.
"CyaR-’IKA."
The heavy thunder of his voice startles you but you don't have time to dwell on it because the world around you tilts glaringly fast and he's scooping you off your precarious perch, mindful of your wounded arm as more wires tumble out, hissing and sparking exactly where your head would have been. The heavy clank of the spare part hitting the floor doesn't compare to his ringing voice still echoing in your head. Panic flares and you wiggle to be free of his iron grip.
His scanners pick up the flying pace of your pulse, releasing you far out of the way of the exposed engine panel.
You stand on what feels like wooden legs, wounded arm and ship damage all but forgotten. It was a snarl normally saved for bounties; you do not like the way your skin still prickles in alarm.
"What did you just call me?"
You hear the modulator catch on a furious huff of breath as the visor tilts towards his feet like he's bothered. Like he's-
Like he’s annoyed.
But no, there’s more to it, an acute fear, maybe, almost stronger than the irritation; it rattles you because he’s not one to scare easily and your face begins to sting at the realization. Not sure your legs can keep you upright, you feel the edge of a crate at the back of your knees and you sag down, letting it take your weight, the exhaustion of the entire day suddenly taking its toll. There's another pop and buzz from somewhere above.
The crest would be well into hyperspace by now had it not been for your arm getting in the way of the bounty and his two sets of teeth. The red man’s colourful insult had been promptly cut short, his massive horned head slammed into the carbonite chamber by one furious hunter, hard enough to shatter some bones before the freezing even began. Instead of getting to work repairing the damage to the landing gear, you’d needed help cleaning the wound.
He'd snarled at his bounties in that voice all the time but never with that particular word. You didn’t even want to know what it meant but you couldn’t blame him, not one job had gone well in over a month. You were both running on empty, neither of you’d gotten much sleep for days.
The beskar shifts, his hips and shoulders deflating.
“Are you okay?” he asks. Voice calm, back in control.
Your eyes shoot up, hitting him straight in the visor, and he can’t blame you for that. He chose to ask a question instead of answering yours. Despite the rigid set of your mouth, he sees the hurt and confusion on your face, hates that he put it there.
Today should have gone differently. The nav should not have glitched upon entry. The landing gear had no reason to malfunction like that. Counting guards and exits, you’d both made it back to the ship in one piece but he should have fucking neutralized the quarry as soon as the binders were on. He should have saved the last dose of bacta, and not given in to your insistence last week to use it on himself. The jagged wound on your arm looked worse than it had an hour ago. It would have been fully healed by now. Another thing on his mental list as soon as they could get off this backwash swamp.
“What did you call me.” Your throat is raw and stinging because there he is again, with all the sighing. Irritation claws up your throat and bites at the back of your eyes, and you hate yourself for not being able to tamp it down, the words in your head boiling over. You’re not sure who talks first.
"Look, I know I slow you down. I know, okay. And I know that we’d be gone by now-,"
"It means my darling."
"…if it weren’t for-,”
The word dies on the last syllable; every last thought inside your head freezes.
Mouth gaping, your eyes fix on the black line of his helmet. Stunned, your shoulders buckle under the weight of the air between you. Your hands fall to your lap, numb, your turn to deflate.
Keeping his emotions in check, he stays silent. He knows you heard him. Moving slowly without making a sound, he crouches down at your feet. Your eyes follow him the whole way as he makes himself as small as he can.
Focused on his visor, your silence is burning a hole straight through it. He knows this life isn’t easy for you, the days on end without sleep, bouncing from system to system.
You understood loneliness and nightmares and desperation, you knew how quickly everything could come crashing down and all it did was make you smile brighter, like a dazzling fuck you to the galaxy. He’d lost count of the number of times you’d refurbished his parts, tweaked his weapons before they jammed; he’d have never made it off Alzoc iii last month without your help. And when his nightmares started again after that job, you’d climbed up into his quarters in your bare feet and your long-sleeved sleep shirt and curled up beside him. Sometimes he’d fall back asleep, but sometimes just listening to your breathing was enough. Sometimes he’d turn up the AF in his helmet so he could focus on your heartbeat and not the terrible things in his head. Sometimes he’d wake up hours later with your hand inside the crook of his elbow and your cheek against his shoulder.
Lately, he was waking up with his arm cinched around your waist, painfully aware of the soft curve of your ass nestled against his stomach. His bunk carried your scent now and each time he had to force himself to gently tuck his blankets around your warmth and slip out before you woke.
He’s forgotten what it was like to be alone.
And he doesn't know where to begin.
“I’m sorry.”
The gentle rasp in his voice is not lost on you. “I-... me too."
Your pulse slows down; his scanners detect it. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I wasn’t angry with you. I panicked. I was afraid.”
Your brows tick up in question. “Afraid?”
“You’re injured, you’re exhausted.”
“So are you.”
"I can handle it."
That makes you smile. "And I can't?"
He sighs softly and you get the impression he’s making a quick internal adjustment. Maybe he’s trying to reconcile something in his mind. Or both.
And then,
“I know you can. But I wish you didn’t have to.”
The words come out with a whole new tenderness, slow and smooth and impossibly warm. It feels so... close. You realize he’s... escaping the modulator on purpose, with singular intent.
The effect is instant. The lilting tender pitch dissolves your unease, evaporates every notion of tension in you. His bare voice, the warm baritone draws you closer. It makes your scalp prickle, goosebumps forming down your shoulders, washing through your chest. The sensation swells and crushes and it will spill from your eyes if you don't close them.
He’s speaking this way because he wants to. He’s speaking this way for you.
The sound of soft leather loosening and rumpling and dropping to the floor makes your eyes flutter open.
His gloves are gone. Two bare hands splaying warm on your knees, seeping through your trousers. You’d seen his bare hands when he was tending to wounds or washing up or preparing food, but this. This is intentional; not for himself. These hands are exposed, for you. Vulnerable, trusting; he’d taken his gloves off for you. Pale scars and weathered knuckles, grease etched into his nail beds. You want to trace each line, every groove and vein.
You dig your teeth into your cheek to try and get enough saliva to speak.
"May I…," so softly you almost don’t hear yourself.
The visor dips, giving you permission.
"Y-es." His voice catches on the first letter, taut and pleading before the rest of the word seeps out of his modulator, a sound that makes your heart constrict.
Afraid to breathe, afraid that he might change his mind if you do.
Gently, you trace the scar between his second and third fingers, marvelling at the breadth of his knuckles compared to yours, scuffed and reddened from use. Your careful fingers curl around the back of his hand; cradling the weight of it, turning his palm over, resting it inside yours and-
His jaw goes slack, his mind goes fucking blank, and he fights to keep his eyes open because his bone marrow has all but dissolved into water under your slow touch. You don't see how his shoulders sag, or the surge of warmth on his cheeks. You don't notice how his chest rises and falls in time with yours; you have no idea how hard he’s trying not to come apart in front of you.
With one thumb, you track the line of thick callouses inside his palm where his blaster sits, following the shape of each finger, gently pressing his fingertips until his flesh pales, hoping that when you lift your thumb off, you’ll be able to see the grooves of his fingerprint in your skin. Claiming him as part of you. Your fingertips study the creases of his palm where they deepen, down the edge of his hand, along his wrist where the dark fabric of his shirt begins.
The visor remains blank, motionless, focused on you, watching the tip of your tongue pull your bottom lip into your mouth. He hopes you never stop.
Your thumb memorizes the row of tendons along the inside of his wrist, the steady thump of his pulse. You’re drawn by the impossible warmth of his skin just underneath the fabric, wondering if it would feel just as soft against your lips. Mindless, your thumb disappears under the edge of the fabric without thinking.
A sharp intake of breath inside the visor makes you realize your mistake. Snapped out of your trance, you pull your hands away, know you went too far.
You weren't thinking.
You hear the strangled way he swallows; imagine the tight clench of his jaw.
"S-orry." you stutter, curling your fingers into your palms, trying to swallow around a dry mouth.
Creeds and beliefs and principles take up root in your throat, sucking all the air from your lungs.
The beskar whispers as he sinks forward on his knees, relaxing further onto the floor. "Don't ever be sorry for touching me."
Oh.
If you only knew the things he’d let you do to him.
Sliding his hands over your balled up fists, he waits. Until your shoulders soften, until your fists unclench.
The heat from his hands melts into you, heavy, reassuring. You watch as he gently pries your hands open. The slow drag of his fingertips injects a gentle spray of glitter into your nerve endings, hypnotizing you. The heat of his hands pulls every single magnetized particle under your skin up to the surface, where every last fragment of you reacts, envious, to receive his attention.
Your palms wide open now, he lifts his visor to your face, open and honest, he waits, hopeful. And when your eyes finally lift, seeking his, he has to force himself not to pull you down into his lap. His mouth goes dry, his heart starts to slam against the beskar.
"I want you to keep going."
Oh.
The intention in his voice burns into you. The back of your neck goes hot, spreads up your face. The searing urge to give him every single fucking thing he would ever ask for ignites a wild fluttering inside your ribs like a tiny furious winged animal, rippling heat into your belly and lower.
He wants this.
You want it too.
Without another thought, you lift his palm, bringing it to your cheek, his body twisting with the movement, the scuffed dark edge of his pauldron and his vambrance glints in the light.
Hands so intimate with blades and bloodshed and hostility should not be this tender. But they are. You realize that the lingering scent of worn leather and blaster grease means safety, it means comfort. It means him. His strength, his protection. You want to stay submerged in it. You’d never want to be anywhere else in the galaxy than right here on this crate in the hull of his ship, leaning into his hand, melting into every good memory he has ever given you.
Your face splits into a grin.
He wonders what you’re smiling about.
“Remember when we found that cove with the reef?”
“You mean that waterfall you hurled yourself off without a second thought to what might be under the water.” You hear the smile in his words despite the serious tone he’s trying to render.
“The only things in the water were Angel-pin shrimp, Mando.”
“But you didn’t know that.”
You shrug, “No…, but you did.”
“Yeah, well, someone’s gotta watch out for your reckless ass.” His teasing voice is soft as feathers, his thumb tracing back and forth over your chin so gentle it fills your head with fog, like a hit of spice. Your stomach curls warm from it. You hear the sound of a swallow from his modulator and you clutch his hand where it rests on your jaw, keeping it on your face like you might dissolve if you don’t hold on to him.
He’d never forget the look of the pure abandoned joy on your face that day when you’d heaved yourself out of the water, climbing back up the rocky outcropping and stood there, dripping water on his boots. That was the day the deafening roar of the waterfall drowned out your breathless happiness along with the sound of his pulse. That was the day he had to turn away from the most devastating smile he'd ever seen, from the exhilarating breaths heaving from your chest and the water running down your clothes, from your eyes round and sparkling and brimming with life. He had to turn away and start walking toward the crest because that was the moment he’d realized you’d taken root inside his heart and he was certain you could see straight through the beskar. That was the day he knew, he’d never be able to forsake you anything.
He watches your eyelashes flatten against your cheeks as you tuck your mouth against the base of his thumb, and Maker, your lips are soft. And warm.
Just like the rest of you when you fall asleep in his bed.
He feels drunk.
He wants more.
He wants to know what your mouth would feel like around his knuckles, what your tongue would feel like on his pulse, on the inside of his elbow. Images flash through his head, makes his blood run hot.
Before he can even think, his free hand finds its way up to the warmth of your other cheek. His lungs constrict like he’s climbing a steep dune, he has to open his mouth to get enough air in. He wants to touch you everywhere, Maker. He wants it so badly it pulls at his stomach, the force of it untethering his ribs from their attachments, unfurling for you to fit inside. He’d hold you forever if you’d let him. He wants to give you his name. He doesn’t have much else to give, but he’d give you everything he has.
If you could hold his hands like this, maybe you’d accept his heart too. He’s already built a home for you in it.
Big hands cradling your jaw like you are a delicate ornament, you notice the armour shifting, the chest plate lifting and expanding with each rough sound from the modulator. Your reflection wobbles in his helmet as he moves closer. His pauldrons lift, the beskar beginning to crowd your vision and the soft crumple of leather and fabric shifts between you. And then liquid-smooth beskar touches your warm brow and-
Two heartbeats skid and stop, forgetting to breathe. Creeds and beliefs and principles flood your throat again, but this time a surge of overwhelming warmth comes with it.
A kiss.
Your grip on his wrists tightens, the mad thumping of his pulse under your fingertips devastates you; the weight of his helmet on your forehead, the intimacy of this gesture, it is almost unbearable.
My darling.
How did a flat expanse of black and impenetrable steel have the power to fill you with such affection?
Time itself dissolves as he lingers like this with you, the warmth of his body infusing your veins, engulfing you. You wonder if he’s watching you behind the visor or if his eyes are pressed shut like yours are. You hear him inhale, slow and full, as though he is trying to infuse every corner of his ribcage and maybe his memory too. The question burns on your tongue.
"Does it really mean, my darling?"
"Yes."
"But… you'd sounded so annoyed."
The heat of his hands is gone as he pulls away, fingertips sweeping down your arms. The visor tilts, but you can still feel his eyes on you.
"I was,” a single crackle from the modulator, halfway between a sigh and a chuckle, “I was annoyed at myself."
"Why?"
He is unable to stop the way his smile mirrors yours and now he's losing himself in the liquid of your gaze, itching to touch you again. His gaze falls to your mouth, watching you wet your bottom lip.
"Because I was hoping the first time I say that to you... it would be," he pauses, reaching for your chin, his fingers slowly following the edge of your jaw, stopping at the nape of your neck, “more like this."
Your shoulder blades erupt in goosebumps, tingling down your arms.
"Say it again," you breathe.
"Cyar'ika."
The word trickles thick and slow along your senses, settling somewhere deep in your chest. Solid, warm, safe.