Work Text:
The box sat on the shelf in Cobb’s house for who knows how long. He had vague memories of his younger self picking it up at a market in Mos Eisley a lifetime ago, suddenly struck with the need to own them so no one else could. The purveyor had been somewhat confused with his urgency, though amused. They weren’t particularly expensive or ornate. Just a pair of small silver hoops nestled in the fabric, shining and smooth. Cobb had tucked them into a pocket, baffled by his rush to spend his credits on something so frivolous. But what was done was done.
The years went on and they moved when Cobb moved, the box getting scuffed and beaten over the years, but he always had them, tucked into his personal effects. He’d even bought other earrings since, some ornate, some plain. He’d look at the box and think maybe this time he’d put them on, but no, he never did. It felt…wrong and he wasn’t about to think too hard about that. But he also couldn’t find it in him to take them out and wear them.
When Din stumbled across them, Cobb had almost forgotten about them again. Between the krayt and Din crashing into his life, it made sense. He couldn’t keep track of half the junk he’d picked up over the years, and the box itself was just part of the background noise of his home, another shape his eyes skipped over in the morning while he got ready, that he turned his back to at night when he slept.
“Why do you have a pair of beskar earrings?”
Din’s eyebrows were knit together in a small frown, his expression more confused than anything else. He tilted the box in the warm light spilling from the single lamp on Cobb’s side table. They winked and glinted at him while he sprawled across the bed, almost dozing in their bed.
“Hmm? Wuzzat…?”
Din showed him the box and Cobb gently plucked it from his hand, casting a speculative eye over them, “Oh these ole things? Naw that’s not beskar, I got ‘em forever and a day ago, they ain’t special. Probably durasteel or something.”
He snapped the box shut and tossed it back at Din to replace on the shelf.
Din huffed and went to the closet, bringing out his helmet. Even now the sight of Din’s helmet caught Cobb off guard, the face he’d come to know and love before Din had showed him his other face. Carefully Din took one of the small hoops out and tapped it lightly against the shining surface. It let out a quiet but clear ringing sound, and that’s what got Cobb to sit up fully, “See, beskar. Where did you get them?”
Cobb shrugged, “Some vendor in Mos Eisley. I saw ‘em and I just…I had to have ‘em. Never wore ‘em though, never seemed right. Too pretty for the likes of me and all that.”
Din snorted at that, “Yeah, too pretty for you, sure.”
“That’s what I said, now put ‘em back and get in here, you were dead on your feet earlier, you gotta be ready to pass out.”
Din had to nod in agreement with that, it had been a long day dealing with the new vaporators and negotiations with the Tuskens. Despite everything going well it had been a long day. He tucked his helmet back into the closet and clambered into the bed beside Cobb.
Cobb noticed Din still held the box in his hands, cradling them gently as if they were precious to him and hell, if they were beskar, maybe they were.
“If you want ‘em you can have ‘em, I know beskar is important,” he said quietly.
Abruptly Din looks up, his eyes widened slightly.
“You want me to have them?”
Cobb was awake now, thrown a bit by Din’s expression, “...yeah? I mean, you don’t have to, I can just-” he reached out to take the box from Din, convinced he’d gravely insulted the man.
“No, Cobb it’s-,” Din cut himself off, pursing his lips, clearly thinking, before turning to kneel in front of Cobb, the box still clutched in his hands.
“Din I’m real sorry, I had no idea they were beskar I swear, I was just a dumb kid who bought something shiny, you can do whatever you want with ‘em. I just don’t wanna upset you.”
Din glanced up, “Whatever I want? You promise?”
Cobb nodded, the anxiety clawing its way out of his stomach and up his throat. He did wrong somehow and he wanted to fix it.
“Will you wear one for me?” Din asked earnestly, and Cobb could only blink. He hadn’t expected that.
“What?” he squawked, a bit forcefully in the dim light of their bedroom. Din deflated slightly.
“No, no, darlin’, I will if…if that’s what you want, but I just don’t understand why? But if it makes you happy I sure can.”
Din took one out, and Cobb obliged him, leaning forward so he could fit it into the bare lobe on his right ear. It fit perfectly snug, catching the silver in Cobb’s hair beautifully. When he was done and Cobb got a look at Din’s face he was practically beaming.
“What about the other one?”
Din looked shy at that, a blush creeping up his throat and onto his face. He cleared his throat, nervously asking “Could you put it in my ear?”
Cobb nodded dumbly, still not entirely sure what was going on but he’d probably commit all sorts of crimes for Din if he only asked so sweetly. Din turned his head, offering his left ear.
Finding his voice, Cobb attempted to lighten the mood, the urge to chatter overwhelming him in the face of these emotions, “I gotta say I don’t know how I missed that you had yours pierced, but I’m sure it’ll look divine on you.”
He chucked Din gently under the chin as they leaned back from each other to admire their respective handiwork.
“That sure does look good on you, sweetheart, but then again you always look good in beskar,” he grinned, Din’s blush extending further.
The atmosphere in the room felt more settled somehow, Cobb would be damned if he could put a finger on why.
“So d’you wanna let me in on what this is all about then? You don’t have to, but I gotta say I’m a mite curious as to why you got all squirrely about it, not that I mind.”
Din looked away for a moment, buying himself time with a cough. Cobb grinned, a small part of him delighting in his ability to fluster Din, even now.
“You aren’t allowed to make fun,” Din said, the matching grin on his face belying the solemn tone of his voice.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Cobb nodded, gesticulating rather flippantly, the childhood rhyme spilling out before he could help himself. But Din barked out a laugh, clearly amused.
“In the covert when you had…a sweetheart, sometimes partners would buy a pair of these,” he tapped the earring in his own ear, “and split them between the two of them. It was…a way of keeping a small part of each other with you close.”
The importance of the earrings was slowly dawning on Cobb, but he kept his mouth shut, the gravity of the situation overriding his instinct to crack a joke in the face of Din’s sincerity.
“So you would be wearing a piece of me, and I you.”
Cobb nodded, not trusting himself to open his mouth just yet. It was surreal, he thought, thinking how much he’d gained and lost over the years, but never these earrings. The box, with its worn corners, sitting tipped on the bed, forgotten now that its precious contents were finally where they were meant to be. He tried to imagine telling the man he used to be that someday those cheap little earrings were not only beskar but that he’d be sharing them with a Mandalorian, just like he shared a bed, a home, his heart. He had to laugh at the improbability of it all and he let out a snort.
Din looked nonplussed. “You swore you wouldn’t make fun.”
“No, darlin’, I’m laughing at me and my dumb ass. I held onto those earrings for so long, I just never expected to be sharin’ them with someone I loved is all. S’pose I held onto ‘em thinking I’d sell them at some point, I guess. The boy who bought those wouldn’t believe where they ended up, but that boy is long gone and the man who owns them now thinks they’re right where they belong.”
It was one of the more tender speeches Cobb had given, but Din ducked his head, a smile cracking across his face.
Cobb reached over to gently touch the skin-warmed metal, tucked against Din’s darker skin. Soon enough the hairs at his temple would match and then they’d be a matched set, the both of them silver and shining.
“I love you too, Cobb.”
Cobb grinned broadly, “Well then c’mere and kiss me like you mean it.”
Din enthusiastically complied, Cobb letting out a soft oof as his back hits the surface of the mattress. Din perched above him, staring into Cobb’s face as if he was seeing him for the first time. Cobb couldn’t help reaching up to tweak an errant curl that had fallen into Din’s handsome face.
“Now let’s sleep, we’ll see if anyone notices them tomorrow. If Jo say somethin’ I’m just gonna pretend I have no idea what they’re talkin’ about, how’s that sound.”
Din snorted and buried his face in Cobb’s neck, joining him on the sprawl of the sheets.
“You’re a menace.”
“Yeah, well, you said you love me and gave me this earring so no take backs, you’re stuck with me.”
“Good.”
Cobb reached over to slap the switch to turn the lamp off as Din got settled, tugging the sheet up over them both before returning to press up against Cobb with a contented sigh. Chenini peered into the darkened room through the high slit windows of Cobb’s bedroom, the earrings winking back at her in return.