Work Text:
You weren’t expecting the panic that fills your body and floods your brain at the sight of Din beginning to tug his helmet off.
He’d given you his name. He’d given you bare hands and the feeling of the shape of his face and his body under the blanket of darkness. You’d never asked for any of it, and he gave it to you anyway. You never questioned his choices, because they were his.
But this was too much.
Before you could even think the action through your hands shot out, gripping his wrists to still his own hands. He freezes, stiffening under you, and for the first time sees actual panic on your face.
“Don’t.” You can’t think, can’t stitch together the words to explain why you reacted the way you did, why you look so panicked at the idea of seeing his face.
“Cyar'ika?” He sounds so confused, his voice split between the modulator and his unfiltered voice just barely leaking out from under the raised edge of his helmet. You hate it, the confusion and the way you know it’s going to morph into embarrassment. But you still can’t think, so you pull his wrists down, settling the helmet back where it belongs.
He drops his hands, impassive visor practically boring into your soul. A moment later he nods, short and stiff, and twists away towards the ladder. You don’t process the stiff set of his shoulders or the way he radiates ‘keep away’ until he’s disappeared through the hatch.
You stare after him, for how long you’re not sure, until your thoughts finally settle and you can place the feeling that had accompanied the panic.
Fear.
You know exactly what he’s doing as you climb the ladder. Robotically fiddling with the controls, manually doing tasks that the Crest can do without interference, giving himself a purpose to push down the feeling of rejection.
As the door to the cockpit opens your heart sinks to see you were right. His back is to you, shoulders tensing at the sound of the opening doors. Guilt floods your chest knowing you did that. So much progress, so many things he’d shared with you because he felt comfortable enough to open up to you, and one moment ruined it all.
“Din?”
He doesn’t answer, hands still moving over the ship's controls.
You move up behind him, laying a hand on a tense shoulder. “Please, I-”
“You don’t have to explain.” If the way he was physically reacting hurt, this was agony. There was no emotion in his voice, no hint to how he was feeling. That in itself was practically a neon sign flashing his pain over his head.
You’d hurt him. Unintentionally, but that didn’t matter.
“Din, please. I didn’t mean…” The words are still stuck, jumbled up in your brain, but for his sake, you need to try. He thinks it was a rejection, that you didn’t want him.
You move around in front of him, sliding slowly into his lap. His helmet stays trained firmly out the front of the Crest, the equivalent of refusing to meet your eyes. You cup the sides of his helmet, forcing him to look at you, and try your best to meet his gaze through the visor.
“I didn’t stop you because I don’t want to see your face, Din. I do. I’m just scared.”
His helmet tips slightly in your hands, head tilting in confusion. “Of what?”
You take a deep breath, smiling weakly. “I’m afraid you’ll change your mind about me. Realize I wasn’t the right one to show yourself to. That you’ll regret it, because you can’t take it back. I know how important it is to you, and I would never want to take your decision away from you. But…I can’t shake the fear that someday you’ll wish you could take it back.”
He’s quiet, and you start to think he’s rejecting your explanation. Just as you’re about to pull away Din lifts his hands, gripping your wrists just like you’d gripped his just moments ago. He pushes up, keeping your hands tight to his helmet so it lifts as well.
And then you’re holding his helmet in your lap and seeing his face for the first time.
The first thing you think is that he’s beautiful. It wouldn’t have mattered how he looked, you knew that. You’d fallen for him, how he looked didn’t matter, but he really was beautiful.
He looked nervous, and you realized how jarring it was to be able to read his expressions so easily now. You’d gotten so used to interpreting the small things - a tilt of his helmet, the set of his shoulders, how his fingers twitched when he was impatient - that it felt like suddenly being handed a floodlight after trying to read a book by the light of the stars for so long.
“I won’t regret it.” His words bring you back, and you frown slightly. Din smiles in response, and you know right then and there it will forever be your favorite sight.
“Showing you. I won’t regret it.” He leans forward, eyes closing as he rests his forehead against yours.
“Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum.”