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The three of you head into the cave, though you and Din stop just in the mouth of the entrance as Bo’katan continues forward. She speaks up, over her shoulder. “And here we are: The Mines of Mandalore. I’ll give you two a minute, I’m going to scope things out.” Din nods back at her affirmatively, and you turn to him, excited.
“You made it, Din. You did what no one else thought was even possible. The living waters are still here! You can set everything right again.”
He sighs, his voice audibly terse through the modulation. “I know.”
Your brow scrunches in confusion. “Why don’t you sound happy about it?”
He turns to you and seemingly stares for some time. When he finally speaks, his voice cracks slightly, like it pains him to do so. There is a curve to his upper back that wasn’t there before and a weight to his shoulders that he didn’t carry on the way down.
“Because after I am redeemed in the waters, I will no longer be an apostate, but I will not be able to kiss you again.”
His words visibly take you aback, shattering the happy moment and splintering your heart. “What?”, you whisper. He pauses briefly before responding.
“I cannot remove my helmet.”
Realization settles over you slowly and unwillingly, eventually letting out a near-silent, “Oh,” as means of acknowledgment. He hasn’t moved from his spot by even a millimeter.
“Is this still okay with you?”
“It… It’s not my choice, Din. This is your religion, your faith…. I support you in whatever you need to do for this. Always.”
“Even this?”
“Even this.”
“Cyare…”
“Even this, Din. I promise. Even with this.” Finally, he breaks his stoic posture and walks over to you, placing his gloved hand on your face tenderly, stroking your cheek with his thumb. The scratch of the worn leather prickles your skin as you look into his visor, wishing you could see the expression on his face. “If you’re going to, uh… be redeemed after this is all over anyway, can I ask you for something?”
“Anything, cyare.”
You were still his beloved, even if he couldn’t kiss you to prove it.
You take a deep breath, steadying yourself before asking. “Can I kiss you one last time? Please? I promise I won’t look. I’ll keep my eyes closed until you tell me to.”
He responds with a hum and you blink down at your feet.
“If that’s asking too much, I understand. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to overstep, and I don’t want to test your faith, so please don’t let me do that.” His hand travels down your arm to grasp the back of your own, the other hand mirroring it on the opposite side. Slowly, he pulls your hands up toward his head, placing them on either side of his helmet.
You lock eyes with his visor again and he commands lowly.
“Go ahead.”
Your eyes go wide. “Really?”
He nods, touching foreheads with you as you close your eyes.
“Yes.”
You feel his right palm come up to your cheek and pause there before he drags it across your eyes to shield your vision as he pulls slightly away from you, though still within your reach. His voice is low and gravelly when he repeats his earlier command.
“Go ahead, cyar’ika. I mean it.”
You slowly, so slowly, lift the helmet off his head and drop it into your right hand, where he takes it from you and places it somewhere on the damp rocky floor beside him with a soft clink.
“Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum.” He whispers, as his left hand wraps around the back of your neck, pulling you into a kiss. It's the fieriest kiss you think you’ve ever had, all passion, teeth, and tongue. The hand on your neck travels down to the small of your back and you snake your own up to his face, running your fingers through the sparse hair on his chin and cheeks. You savor the feeling of his skin against your own, trying to commit the shape of his cheekbones and nose to memory before it is lost to you forever.
Suddenly, the gloved hand that was covering your eyes shifts, moving to the side of your face and then wrapping behind your head and fisting into your hair. You squeeze your eyes shut even tighter, afraid to stop thinking about it for even a moment.
When he finally pulls away from you for a moment, the two of you are breathing heavily. Din rests his forehead on yours and you breathe together for a few beats before he finally breakas the silence with another instruction.
“Open your eyes,”
The order shocks you and you instinctively shake your head ‘no’ in response, yet he continues to urge you further.
“Open your eyes, cyar’ike.”
You hesitate, letting your breathing calm down as you attempt to rationally respond to him. “I can’t, Din, I can’t do that to you.”
Your hands are on his shoulders now and you can feel his body heave out a sigh at your response. “Then do it for me. Let me see you. Open your eyes.” You pause for a moment before giving in, as you slowly creak one eye open, and then the other. Din has a soft smile on his moustached lips, his wide brown eyes boring into your own. Something primal wells up in you as you get a full view of his face for the first time, and your body lets out an involuntary squeak. His thumb rubs lazy circles into the back of your cheek as your eyes dart about, trying to commit all of his features to memory.
“Din, you’re… you’re so beautiful.” A barely there tinge of pink develops over his features and you smile wide. “I love you. I love you so much.” His face is deeply expressive - showing all of the embarrassment and self consciousness that he’s feeling at once, pulling on your heartstrings like nothing else ever had before. It breaks you just a little bit when you can feel the heat in his cheeks become to much for him and he kisses you again.
This time is deep and slow, savoring the taste of your lips on his. It feels final - you know you need to get moving, even in the midst of such major shifts between the two of you. Eventually, you break away and speak once more.
“Din, I love you so much that I’ll let this be both the first and the last time I get to look into your eyes, and I promise you that I will never, ever, ask you to remove your helmet ever again. I respect you, and your Creed, way to much to ever possibly do otherwise.”
He blinks back at you and smiles, sadly, bending down to pick his helmet back up. You pull him in for another quick and searing kiss before launching your arms around his torso and pushing your cheek fiercely into his cuirass. As you pull away, he lifts his helmet to place it back on his head, but you reach out to stop him.
“Wait. Let me? Please?” He nods and yields the helmet to you, taking a knee in front of you so that you could reach more easily.
You place it above his forehead like a crown and slowly bring it down, covering his forehead, his eyebrows, his eyes, then his cheekbones, and the tip of his nose. You pause there, leaning into him to grasp his lips with your own one last time. You try desperately to burn them into your mind.
When you finally force yourself to pull away, you finish slipping the helmet over the rest of his face, and he reaches up to re-engage, tell-tale hiss of an air-lock slipping back into place. He stands slowly and you give him the best sad smile that you can muster.
“I love you like this, too, Din Djarin.” The words creak out of your throat with tears in your eyes, and he once again presses the forehead of his helmet to your own, a keldabe kiss, as he told you a few weeks ago. “I love every version of you.”
The stare coming back at you from his visor is obviously blank, but you imagine him smiling underneath of it.
“You ready?” He questions, voice modulated once more.
“As I’ll ever be.” he turns you around with a hand on the small of your back and leads you toward Bo’katan and the steps below.