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Ten years ago, Cobb installed a tub in his tiny bathroom. Fashioned the thing from metal and wood, ran pipes in and out of it, sealed it up until it was waterproof and perfect. He’d seen one during time spent on Naboo, back in those long, liminal days between escaping slavery and taking over as Sheriff of Mos Pelgo. Back then he was bouncing between odd jobs and planets as easily as each other; some bounty hunting, mostly smuggling. Trying to dodge anything that didn’t feel good. He was in his mid-twenties, and hungry. Starving for anything new or fun or pleasurable.
That part of him never really went away, even if he’s slowed way down since those years. Why else would he install a bath on one of the galaxy’s most arid planets? Call it nostalgia, call it romanticism, call it stupidity. Cobb took one long soak in the thing and never used it again. Now it’s storage for dirty boots, or a place to lie down flat in with the lights off, breathing slowly. The shallow aquifer that lies under Cobb’s house — his best kept secret — would’ve drained years ago if he used it for anything else.
Now, with a filthy, bleeding Mandalorian leaned heavily into his side, Cobb wonders if there was some cosmic influence involved in that choice. Or, like everything else that’s ever happened to him, whether it was just plain luck.
The bathroom is barely big enough for Cobb himself: if he stands in the middle of the room, he can touch both walls without having to try. The ceiling, too. He’s constantly bruised from bumping his elbows, his hips, his knees. So adding Din the mix makes the room suffocating for a minute, until he sighs, and sets himself down on the closed lid of the toilet to begin stripping his armour from himself.
Cobb hovers nearby, unsure. They’ve barely exchanged two words since Din had stumbled into the Sheriff’s office, just as Cobb was considering leaving early for the day. The saloon was calling him, and then home: a warm, lonely evening of watching the moons rise from his seat on the porch. But then the daylight spilling in through the open front door dimmed in the shape of a man, and Cobb found himself pulled back into Din’s slipstream.
He doesn’t know what’s happened to Din between his leaving Mos Pelgo and his darkening the doorstep of the Sheriff’s office. Cobb isn’t really sure how to ask. But he smells like sweat and like sand; has no child in tow, no ship. Blood has darkened and turned stiff in the weave of his undershirt, just visible between the armour he’s easing from himself now. Like a kicked dog, he’s retreated to the last place someone was gentle with him.
“Lemme help,” Cobb says, softly. Din is expressive despite the helmet; Cobb can see his pain, his exhaustion. His elbow is braced to the sink, like he can’t hold himself up without it. Fingers clumsy as they tug and pick at the straps holding his armour to him. Cobb pushes them away, and sets to working the leather through the buckles. It’s smooth, dark with oil; well-maintained but creased at the point where metal meets leather. Din is breathing shallowly. His sweat smells different to how it had when they’d had sex, months ago. Sharper, more animal: liquor and fear.
The buckle comes loose, and with it the breastplate half falls away; hinges like an open door. Freed, Din’s chest heaves. In silence, Cobb loosens the other side too, and then lifts the beskar away.
The helmet tilts. Visor black and glassy and impenetrable. “Thank you,” Din says, gruffly. Then he lets Cobb strip him of the rest of it.
Din’s a solver of other people’s problems. Cobb has seen it firsthand, the way he’d blown through town and hadn’t hesitated in getting caught up in their fight against the dragon. Had heard about it too; idle pillow-talk with an orgasm-drunk Din, the bedside light gleaming off his helmet as he’d told Cobb stories in that low, even voice of his. Now, as he watches Din get stiffer and stiffer the closer he gets to skin, Cobb wonders if it’s hard for a problem solver to accept help. There’s only so much throwing yourself at other people’s struggles the body can take. When was the last time anyone gave you the care that you give others? Cobb thinks, his own reflection warped and bulbous in the thin strip of glass that is Din’s eyes, for lack of a better place to hang them. His armour is gone, and the carapace beneath: flak vest, gloves, his torn flight suit. Cobb remembers this from undressing him before. Getting down to skin with a Mandalorian feels all the more sweet for how long it takes.
But this time, Din is uncomfortable. Not pressing himself into Cobb’s hands and fumbling himself out of his clothes. So Cobb says nothing, and turns away to run the water into the bath, leaving Din to undress himself the rest of the way.
This time is different in almost every way it can be. Din’s hollow silence. The feeling of something hanging unsaid between them that Cobb doesn’t really have the courage to press. He runs hot water into the tub, a hand under the flow to check the temperature. Listens to Din undressing behind him; the shift of fabric, the sound of him wincing. When Cobb glances at him, it’s to find Din pressing bare fingers to his bare side; the skin there a wash of old blood, matted into his body hair. Cobb whistles.
“Looks like it stings.”
Din’s laugh is humourless. “Only a little.”
His hands fall to his lap, fingers curling, bloody at their tips. The room is slowly filling with steam. Din’s wound is bleeding again: Cobb can see the shine the new blood catches when Din shifts to start on his boots with a grunt. Wordlessly, Cobb kneels into the tight space between tub and sink and toilet, and works them from Din’s feet for him.
The rushing water covers the silence. Loud, thundering against the bottom of the tub. When Cobb leans over to shut the faucet off a few minutes later, the silence is deafening. Punctuated only by the plink plink plink of the last of the water making its way out of the pipes. Into it, Din sighs. Leans forward over his knees to lay the shining forehead of his helm into his hand.
“Vanth,” he murmurs. “Cobb.” There’s a thickness to his voice that matches the smell of liquor on him. Cobb wonders just how long Din has been in Mos Pelgo; whether they would’ve run into each other anyway, even if Din hadn’t come looking for him. It could even explain the blood. Mos Pelgo’s become a little busier, and with that a little badder, since the dragon was dispatched.
Din seems to have run out of words. Or maybe he never had any in the first place. Instead of prodding, Cobb just leans into him, knocks his brow against the helmet’s temple. “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Cobb likes to think of himself as a good read on people. Din’s a harder study than most. If they hadn’t slept together, Cobb’s sure he’d have no grasp on him: wouldn’t know what to do with himself here, in this tiny room with this bleeding man. The sadness comes off Din in waves. But when you can’t see someone’s face, you’ve gotta turn to other things. The slump of his shoulders, the loose curl of his hands. It’s like some line has been cut inside of him; some string that held him so taut and straight the last time he was here in Cobb’s home. Now Din goes easy when Cobb motions for him to rest his elbow on the side of the sink, baring his wound to the air and Cobb’s cotton ball of antiseptic. The scars under his nipples shine; the light overhead skating through them as he shifts, opens himself up further to Cobb’s hands.
“Does it hurt?” Cobb breathes, when the first touch of the cotton to the wound doesn’t draw a flinch from Din.
He breathes out heavily through his nose. “Yes.”
Cobb’s more careful with him, after that.
Before long the sink next to them is filled with bloodied cotton balls, and the room stinks of antiseptic. Cobb cracks the window just to banish it; the late evening air flooding in to replace both the steam and the lingering medicinal smell. The air smells sweet, like a warm, lonely night. Cobb wants a cigarette. He wants a beer. He wants Din to climb into the bath, to wash the blood and dirt from himself.
Where’ve you been? Cobb asks, as he watches Din inspect his side. Gentle, rough-hewn fingers prodding at the tender skin. What happened to you? What brought you here? Cobb can still remember how it felt to have those fingers in his mouth; hooked around his lips, pressing hard into his molars. Not that this is the right time to get caught up in all that.
Cobb says, “Water’s not gettin’ any warmer.” He doesn’t think he needs to press the importance of a tub brimming with precious water in a place like Tatooine. Din’s helmet turns towards it. Strange, the way that blank visor can look hesitant.
Last time Din had stripped nude, save for the helmet, was under darkness. Urged there by want. Under the overhead light it’s different. So when the silence between them grows and lingers, Cobb says, “Alright. I’ll go first.”
His fingertips still feel cold and tingly from the antiseptic he’d doused Din with as he works his belt off, and his boots, followed by the rest of his clothes. He hadn’t really expected to find himself nude in front of Din again, but luckily Cobb was born without shame and doesn’t feel shy for it. Still, it’s strange to compare then and now. The heavy way Din’s attention had lingered on him, their dance from kitchen to bedroom, the moment where Cobb’s hands hit bare skin, and he knew the Mandalorian was naked. Different feelings fog the air now, as thick as the steam rising up off the water. It’s just at the right edge of too-hot when Cobb eases himself in, and after a moment he hears the shift of fabric against skin and then Din is joining him. Sitting himself between Cobb’s knees; bony, pale and hairy, sticking up out of the water.
It’s a tight squeeze; the tub was barely built for Cobb’s body in mind, let alone Din’s too. But with some shifting, water sloshing over the sides, they fit just fine. Din’s bare back to Cobb’s font; the two of them melting into each other as if they’d never been pried apart. Again, Cobb thinks, where’ve you been? His hand traces over Din’s bicep, down his forearm. Their fingers tangle.
Din says, “I knew coming to you was the right thing.”
Cobb doesn’t respond. He doesn’t need to. The room is full of the smell of the waning day; desert flowers blooming on the breeze that stirs the steamy air. Cooling sand. Setting suns. When Din takes his helmet off a heartbeat later, all Cobb feels is glad: glad he’ll be able to smell the night too, glad that he’ll be able to wash Din all over.
Beskar makes a particular sound. Din setting it to the tile floor makes it ring out, clear as glass. Then he drops his forehead to his knees, muscles shifting under the skin of his back as his arms come around to draw his knees to his chest. Cobb, he tries not to be too weird about it. Lathers soap in his palms and spreads it over Din’s shoulders, his back, down his arms, the dark hair underneath them. But the whole time, he can’t drag his eyes from the nape of Din’s neck. The way his hair is curling so sweetly in the humidity, the pale shock of his scalp at the crown of his head. The faint curve of his face that Cobb can see; more of a tease than the line of hair that leads down to his dick. His heart feels so huge and swollen in his chest that Cobb swears its inching up this throat; so close to his molars he can taste it. What can he do with all this affection? Scrub his shampoo through Din’s hair. Rinse it like his mother used to rinse his own hair; kneeled at the side of the tub several family members had stepped through before Cobb. Wetting the front of her dress, her apron, unaware or just uncaring of her own dampness in her want to get Cobb clean.
When Cobb scratches at Din’s scalp, he makes a low, pleased noise. How many people have touched you here? Cobb thinks, pressing his fingers into all the places he couldn’t reach last time. The hollow behind Din’s ears, the bumps of his spine, the broad broad broad expanse of his shoulders.
It’s strange, to know that under that helmet is just a man with brown hair and a patchy beard. Unblemished skin that hasn’t seen sun in decades. Curling hair, messy, untrimmed. The helmet is staring up at him from the floor, a gentle reminder not to pry, not to ask all the dumb questions crowding his throat. How long has it been? Does it feel strange? Is taking it off new, could you’ve done it when we had sex?
But Din, he’s mumbling, “Thank you.” Suds running down his back, down into the cloudy water, cooling by the minute. Cobb cups handfuls of it between his palms, bringing it to Din’s head until his dark hair rinses clean. A tender sort of ache is developing in his chest, right between his nipples as if someone had punched him there. What’s affection without a little pain?
Din has turned his head slightly; Cobb can see long eyelashes, a strong crook of a nose, deep brown eyes. His heart presses its hands against his ribcage. Outside the window, an animal is calling; its cry lonely in the bruise-purple dusk.