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rokuhoku · 11 months

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Ration Packs

Pairing: Din Djarin x female reader

Word Count: 4.7k

Summary: based on this request...

“I’m guessing it’ll be ration packs for dinner?” you added, nodding towards the empty satchel hanging from his hip. “There wasn’t a market on the way back to the ship,” he almost pleaded, trying to explain his intentions, but you simply gave him a tight-lipped nod in acknowledgment. “I’ll get the packs started so it's ready by the time you’ve unloaded.” Your voice lacked its usual kindness. This shift in the conversation had you speaking with him as if this were all just… business. Had he pushed you too far? Were you trying to remind him that he had hired you to be here? That he should be keeping things… professional? Fuck. This was why he worked alone.

Warnings: mild language, miscommunication [but not in a horrible way, don’t worry, I’m better than that], young dumb in love din djarin, mild angst, angst with a happy ending, everything is in Din’s pov because i love his dumbass train of thought, idk it’s pretty soft

AN: oh my god i’m back from the dead! I told you guys i’d be back 😂 This request has been sitting in my inbox for probably about a year… and I have no end of apologies, but i’m finally done and it’s a miracle I don’t hate it 😂 I did change the prompt a little… the idea of them putting Grogu to bed was cute, but I had an idea for a younger Din and just fell in love with it, so i ran with that. I hope you guys enjoy 💖 Thank you @deceiver-of-gods for putting up with me all this time, ily 😘

Din had traveled through the toughest parts of the galaxy without batting an eye. He’d run with a mercenary group and proven himself to have more skills, more hits, more value… and more of a moral compass than anyone else in the group. After fighting his way out of their grip, he had taken out high-level targets with ease to earn his way into the Bounty Hunters guild. Din continued to be not only one of the youngest of their ranks, but also the most highly sought after. And after all of that?

You were his greatest challenge.

His Razor crest had taken one too many hits for him to be able to repair on his own, and the costs of repairs on his pre-imperial ship were starting to eat into the funds he usually gave back to his covert. Not providing for them was not an option; the Beroya was supposed to send their spoils back to the covert to provide for those in hiding. This is the way…

So when he landed on a planet with lush, colorful flora, and a generally trusting local people, he least expected you to strike a bargain with him. He needed a mechanic, and you wanted a ticket out. Free boarding and transportation in exchange for a live-in repair crew, he just had to get you the parts. It was his perfect solution. He hired you on the spot and scheduled to ship out as soon as the Crest was back in working order.

On that first day of travel, Din had only just entered hyper-speed when he became overly critical of his ship. The cold, metal surfaces of the hull were uninviting, full of sharp edges, and devoid of any personality. It didn’t take him much longer to realize that, to an outsider, his armor looked much the same.

But he’d never seen it that way before. To him, the Mandalorian armor was a sign of home, of belonging. It had been his savior in his childhood, and a beacon of his people as he grew into his own. He had tucked away into coverts where the blank metal lining of their ships and their walls meant protection.

But you were not Mandalorian. You hadn’t grown up around sharp edges and cold surfaces. The place you called home was filled with warm colors and soft curves, the buildings made to flow with the organic structures of the nature around them, letting in the bright sunlight necessary for its growth. You yourself walked with an elegance Din was unfamiliar with, treading softly on the ground and smiling brightly at him each time your kind eyes met his dark visor. You had shared your warmth with him since the moment he’d met you, despite the coldness he was certain he portrayed, and it surprised him how much he found himself drawn to it. Drawn to you.

You were everything he wasn’t. But Din would do everything in his power to make sure you never came to regret agreeing to this strange setup, that you never felt isolated or alone because you’d chosen him – a walking wall of cold beskar – as your traveling companion.

At first, he’d merely wanted to bring you things that reminded him of your home, things he thought might do the same for you. Anytime he was in a market passing through, either on a supply run or with a bounty in tow, he found something colorful to bring back to you. The first few had been small trinkets, things you could keep in the small cupboard you had decided to call your quarters, or delicate pieces of jewelry he would later catch you wearing around the ship.

The feeling Din got seeing you wear something he gave you made something warm swell inside of him… It made it hard to come back to the ship empty-handed, especially with the promise of your soft smile when he held his hand to you with a new gift.

On one of his trips, he’d brought back a woven tapestry; the craftsmanship had been beautiful, and the colors matched those of the outfits you wore the most around him. Din was about to launch into an apology when he first gave it to you, not having thought about where you would even be able to put it, but his statement was cut short when you happily grabbed it from him and turned on your heel to find something.

Not even a few moments later, you returned with a handful of powerful magnets you’d picked up on a market a few planets back, and he watched as you excitedly hung the artwork from one of the walls in the Crest’s hull, creating a curtain in front of one of the panels on that wall – you must have thought it was as ugly as he did.

“What do you think?” You had asked him, and he watched self-consciousness start to creep in now that your initial excitement was starting to wear off.

“It looks good,” he’d replied a little stiffly, still having a hard time finding the courage to speak around you. A bounty hunter, with hundreds of captures under his belt, was still too shy to talk to his mechanic… he at least wasn’t dumb enough to miss the irony in his own predicament, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t his truth.

Since then, Din had started bringing back more things you could use to decorate the ship with; tapestries, blankets, and cushions accompanied the trinkets and jewelry he brought back with him. He could tell that your favorite of his gifts had been a soft shawl he’d seen hanging at a market in the rural areas of Naboo. The politician’s son he was paid to deliver back home had gone on about the luxury material it was made of, something about ancient processes and unique resources… All he knew was that it brought out your natural beauty when you wrapped it around your shoulders, and he felt his cheeks get warm under his helmet when you did.

The two of you started to fall into these new routines fairly easily, and with all of your redecorations, it was becoming a welcome change. In the evenings – or at least what you thought was evenings in the darkness of hyperspace – you would prep a set of ration packs for the both of you. It was always two of the same kind so that you could feel like you were “sharing a meal,” a concept he had very little experience with. At least, he hadn’t for a very long time.

Since eating required removing his helmet, Mandalorians often took their meals in solitude, or within the confines of their family. You, on the other hand, were used to shared meals in dining rooms with someone at every seat, and communal dining halls bustling with people. At first, Din was afraid you might take offense to him leaving during meal times, never quite sure how to phrase his dilemma.

Luckily, he never had to.

You caught on pretty quickly to his predicament, handing him a warm ration pack with a smile before turning to let him eat in peace. He always rushed through his meals in order to join you in the hull, to thank you for your silent understanding by coming down to talk with you as you ate yours at a leisurely pace.

As the weeks went by, Din picked up on some of your silent requests as well, memories of food that didn’t need to be rehydrated before you ate it. He began looking out for other booths at the markets, and fresh ingredients began coming home in place of some of the gifts and trinkets he always brought back with him. Each time he did, a home-cooked meal would follow, and Din always made sure he expressed his gratitude when he came back down to join you for the second half of your meal.

Your routines continued like this for a while, silently assessing each other’s needs, and wordlessly adjusting to accommodate. And it worked. The Razor Crest felt more and more like a home rather than the metal casing of a ship, small traces of your personal touch nearly everywhere he looked. The food had been better, the companionship had been better, far better than the cold silence he’d had to put up with before you came to him.

And Din started to catch on to just how much his own feelings revolved around you.

He craved your warmth at the end of a rough day, he sought to provide your happiness, to get your approval… He tried to be better at actually opening his mouth, being able to express more of his feelings for you outside of your usual, quiet understanding of each other. He tried asking you more questions, wanting to not only hear about the events of your day but to actually get to know you better, showing you how much he genuinely cared. And Din was elated when you started to do the same in return.

After he came back to the ship from a particularly taxing hunt, he heard your soft footsteps descending the ladder from the cockpit while he secured the unconscious bounty into the corner of the hull you had affectionately deemed “time-out.” The most uncomfortable chair had been secured behind some of your tapestries, acting as a set of curtains that kept the bounties from view.

When Din emerged from the hanging fabrics, he could feel some of the tension leave his body at the sight of you in your work clothes, a warm smile dancing on your grease-stained cheeks, wiping your hands on the old flight suit you’d brought with you from home. No matter how difficult his hunts had been, being able to debrief with you upon his return always made him smile beneath the helmet.

“Hey!” you lilted.

“Hey,” he responded, still a little awkward despite how long you’d been working together. He was getting better, but it could definitely still use improvement.

“How’d the hunt go?” you asked, gesturing to the closed curtain beside him. “Obviously successful if you’ve got someone in time-out.” Din chuckled under his breath at your quip, mulling over the events of his day before he replied.

“It was fine.” You looked at him expectantly for a few moments, waiting for him to continue.

“Just… fine?” you half giggled, one brow raised in question while you donned a crooked grin. It hadn’t really gone bad, he did have the bounty in hand. It could have gone better, but nothing that came to any detriment in the end…

He nodded. “It… went well. There’s nothing to report,” he shrugged, unsure what else you were looking for in his answer.

But your face fell. Only for a moment… but enough for him to see it.

“How are your repairs coming?” He tried, hoping to stir the conversation again, to fix whatever had caused your sudden change in attitude.

“Fine. There’s nothing to report.” Your answer was short, both in your words and your temper. You usually volunteered the finer details of your projects, explaining with a dramatic flair all of your trials and your victories, stories that Din was always happy to be an audience to.

Why hadn’t you done so this time?

“I’m guessing it’ll be ration packs for dinner?” you added, nodding towards the empty satchel hanging from his hip. One that usually carried whatever gift he had brought for you. Dank farrik… he already hated coming back empty-handed – something you had never made him feel guilty for – but right now it was only making him feel worse.

“There wasn’t a market on the way back to the ship,” he almost pleaded, trying to explain his intentions, but you simply gave him a tight-lipped nod in acknowledgment.

“I’ll get the packs started so it's ready by the time you’ve unloaded.” Your voice lacked its usual kindness. This shift in the conversation had you speaking with him as if this were all just… business. Had he pushed you too far? Were you trying to remind him that he had hired you to be here? That he should be keeping things… professional?

Fuck. This was why he worked alone.

One of the downsides of having grown up around the Mandalorians was that his concepts of interpersonal relationships were skewed. The two of you were operating on completely different sets of rules, and where you had been able to read each other incredibly well… Now he was left to try and figure out where he’d gone wrong.

With Mandalorians, he knew where he stood. They spoke with purpose, meaning exactly what they said. Even growing up constantly harassing and sparring with Paz, Din knew where his sentiments came from; competition, comradery, and a deep passion for his people. But outside the covert… Din was still finding his footing when it came to the beings he interacted with. Riding with the mercenary group had at least taught him how to weed through the tangled lies that spewed from their mouths, trusting them only as far as he could throw them – if that.

But you were nothing like those slimy low lives. He didn’t know how to start friendships, how to engage in small talk… and he had no idea where to start when it came to the way you made his heart rate pick up. You made Din nervous, but you were also a comfort. You were new and familiar all at once, a new adventure as well as a place of rest.

You meant so much to him… and he’d managed to drive you away just as quickly as he had let you in.

…

The fog of uncertainty hung around the ship for days, and with it, the cold emptiness he had been so accustomed to in his solitude had returned. But after the warmth you had brought to his Razor Crest, being without it was almost suffocating. Din missed you.

That was a fact he was trying to wrap his head around, seeing as you still lived with him on the ship… but it wasn’t the same. You stopped humming while you worked on different panels across his ship, blanketing the hull in silence. Any questions Din tried to ask you were met with short, quiet responses. Surprisingly, you still made the effort to prepare a ration pack with yours during meal times, but when he rushed back down from the cockpit in record time to join you, you were nowhere in sight.

There was nowhere to go inside his ship. That was one of the things he’d liked about it; there was room for him to live on board comfortably without giving his bounties anywhere to hide. And yet, you still managed to avoid him. When he entered the hull, you escaped to your room. When he climbed up the rungs to the cockpit, you would make some quiet excuse and scurry out the door behind him. No matter where he went, what he said, or whatever measures he took to try and catch you off-guard, you were gone before he could even open his mouth.

He was fucking sick of it. He had made a promise, when you came aboard, that he would make sure you never came to regret choosing this life with him. That you would continue to choose to stay with him, to choose him over the home planet you were so desperate to leave. He made a promise, and he intended to keep it.

After landing on Nevarro a few days later to return his bounty, Din’s plan began to unfold. He walked out of the run-down cantina Karga liked to meet up at – insisting that he was going to fix it up and make it ‘a place of gathering’ – the spills of his hunt clanking against the mechanical chip he had tucked away in the satchel that sat on his belt. A chip that, if missing, would cause systems in the cockpit to go offline.

Something his mechanic would find during her daily diagnosis check.

Din felt a pang of guilt at the thought of you being buried arms deep in the underside of the control panel with no hope of finding the repair, because he was the one to take it from you... But then he thought about the worser fate; what if you figured out what was missing, and had more reason to dislike him than before? His guilt quickly turned into slight panic, making haste to get back to his ship to enact his plan before your clever brain could figure out what he’d done.

When he returned to the Crest, the harshness of the metal hull was almost overwhelming. You had started taking down your tapestries and decorations, save for everything but the “time-out” corner, and it felt cold. You didn’t come out to greet him or welcome him back, let alone acknowledge him at all. You hadn’t done so since the time your conversation had taken a turn for the worst. He did, however, hear a loud metal clang and your familiar grunt of frustration from exactly where he assumed you would be. He wondered if you had even heard him come on board…

Din quietly discarded his weapons before stealthily moving to the ladder just below the cockpit, stopping in his tracks when he heard a slew of colorful curses leave your lips. He waited a few moments until the sounds of your hard work continued, none-the-wiser to his oncoming ambush.

By the time he reached the top of the cockpit, he took a moment to assess the situation and figure out the best approach. You were exactly where he thought you would be, laying on your back just to the side of his pilot’s chair, agile hands fiddling with different cables and boards inside his instrument panel…

And your head snapped up to look at him when he made the door to the cockpit slide closed behind him.

You stared at Din for a couple moments before you opened your mouth. “Did you… are you cornering me?” When you put it that way, this was not going quite as he’d imagined, despite everything going according to plan. He had to keep going.

“You’re ignoring me,” he said firmly, his tone reminiscent of one he took with his bounties.

“Fucking maker, did you hunt me?” You asked with furrowed brows, and your slightly agitated tone made him fairly certain you didn’t actually need his answer. “I live on the same kriffing ship, and you had to treat me like one of your bounties just to say something to me?”

“I had to talk to you. You wouldn’t let me,” he pressed, keeping his voice steady. You gave a huff of indignation.

“I don’t have time for this, Mando, I have to fix your ship,” you threw at him before your body thumped dramatically on the ground as you went back to your work.

“So you are angry at me,” Din stated, sounding more like an observation than a question. He could work with angry. You shot him a glare without moving too much from your position, and he took that as a good enough indicator to continue his interrogation. “Did I do something to upset you?”

“Mando…” you started, his moniker leaving your lips in an exasperated sigh, not without a flame of annoyance lurking behind it.

“Don’t make another excuse. I’m tired of avoiding this.” He watched the bluntness of his words hit you, not surprised when you furrowed your brows as you started to slide out from under the console, sitting up to scowl at him properly.

“Another- what? I didn’t make any fucking excuses, I’m not avoiding anything,” you fired off, your tone indicating the exact opposite of what you were saying.

“Then why have you stopped talking to me?” Din expected another fiery response, but instead a split-second of realization crossed over your face before it was replaced with one of irritated confusion. It made him — him, the stone-cold Mandalorian bounty hunter — shift on his feet.

“I stopped talking to you?” You countered, and you waited a moment to let him respond… but he didn’t know what you expected him to say. “Right, because you’ve been super talkative after ‘there’s nothing to report’,” you mumbled, and it caused those same words to ring in his head from the night everything went wrong. You had said them so coldly…

After he had said them to you.

“I- I meant no offense,” he tried a little lamely, still not understanding where he had gone wrong, but wanting more than anything for you to understand that he was willing to fix it. “I didn’t have anything to say.” You gave another sigh, but this one was softer, like you were about to level with him. It was progress, if nothing else.

“Nothing? You couldn’t give me the details of your hunt the same way I tell you about the market? I mean, it’s not as exciting as I make it out to be, I just... “ You trailed off and looked away from him without finishing your sentence, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. He was finally getting answers out of you, he was going to get to the bottom of this, and make good on his promise to keep you happy. This was the way.

He was quick to kneel in front of you, trying to get closer to your level to get away from his interrogation tactic, and communicate that he was willing to listen and receive. “You just what? Help me understand.”

You scoffed a laugh as you shook your head. “There’s not a lot to understand. I like talking with you, I like when we share stories. I just… I wanted to be close with you.”

Din wanted to bang his head against the wall. With or without his helmet. This all started because he was an idiot who didn’t know how to talk? He was a bounty hunter, he should have been smarter than that. He should have been able to tell what had caused such a shift, and been able to fix it before the mission could go sideways.

But, in all fairness, he was a bounty hunter who was used to being alone.

Before Din had lucked into having you travel the galaxy with him on his hunts, he came back to an empty ship. There was nobody else to talk about the day with. And after living amongst the Mandalorians, a people of few words, he wasn’t exactly in the habit of speaking to himself or others. Before you, everything that surrounded Din was just… quiet.

“But… this is just professional, I get that now. I’ll stay out of your way, and I won’t pry. It is your ship, after all.”

And he was about to get himself into even more trouble if he didn’t figure out how to speak right fucking now.

“No,” he started firmly, desperately catching on to the tail end of your admission, but not entirely sure what was about to come out of his mouth. “This isn’t- I don’t… I’m not good at talking.” Strong start Djarin.

“What?” You asked softly. If anything, you pretty much justified his statement. He took a breath to try and steady himself, to dig through the chaos inside his head and find a half-way coherent string of words to offer you, to clean up his mess.

“Mandalorians are quiet. Bounty Hunters keep to themselves. I’m not used to talking,” he reiterated, and he watched your confused expression shift gently into one of intrigue, your sign for him to keep going. “I wasn’t trying to shut you out, I just… didn’t know what else to say. I’m used to sparing people any details that aren’t deemed necessary. Now I know that I shouldn’t do that with you. I’m sorry.”

Din was pleased to find a small smile growing at the corners of your mouth. “I mean… You don’t have to give me every detail. Just the good stuff,” you smiled, making Din’s heart feel warm. He didn’t realize how much he missed the radiance of your smile until now, feeling like he was finally stepping into the sun after spending so long in the dark.

“Just the good stuff… So I’ll tell you how much blood there was when I-”

“No, no thanks,” you cut him off quickly, making a fake gagging sound as he laughed under his helmet. “I take it back, let’s go back to no more talking, I’m good. I’ll just stay up here with all my busted circuits, thank you very much.”

“Please don’t, I can’t go back to quiet,” he said quickly, the smile still plastered on his face as the weight of his words hit both of you.

I can’t go back to quiet.

It was true, he couldn’t. The past few minutes talking with you again, even when you were angry and yelling at him half of the time, had him feeling better than he had in days.

“Oh yeah?” You offered, and he could tell by your knowing smile that you had come to the same realization that he did. You knew how much he had come to need you. “You don’t want a break from all my rambling?”

“Never,” he admitted. Din watched your shoulders relax and your soft smile get brighter as his answer left his helmet, and he realized how much you needed him in return. It made a warmth bloom from deep within his chest, warming him all the way out to the very coldest parts of his Beskar armor. “Never stop. I want you to fill this ship with all your stories, real or exaggerated.”

It caught him by surprise when you leapt up from your spot on the ground to meet his height, flinging your arms around his neck as you held him tight, fitting together perfectly even as you knelt on the floor in front of each other. With only a little hesitation, Din wrapped his gloved hands around you, arms circling your waist and pulling you flush against the plates of his armor, and soaked up everything that was you.

This is the way.

Sooner than he would’ve liked, he felt your grip around his neck loosen, and you leaned back to lock you gaze with his dark visor.

“As much as I’d love to catch up, your ship is driving me crazy and I have got to figure out how to get these control panels back online,” you explained, and Din slowly started to realize he hadn’t thought this part through.

“Well, I uh…”

“You’re welcome to stay and chat, if you’re in the talking mood. I’d love to hear about your meeting in town,” you offered playfully, sending him a wink as you began to shuffle yourself back down under the open compartment of his shift.

Instead, he got down on the ground and laid himself next to you, as if he was going to look at what you were doing with the repairs. Your hands stopped mid-action as you looked at him, and he enjoyed the airy laugh that escaped you at his actions.

“Or you can watch from here, that’s fine, too.”

“I was actually going to offer a suggestion,” he started timidly. You turned away from him as you focused on the wires in front of you again.

“I'll take anything you’ve got. I haven’t seen anything like this in ages… I’ve only got one idea left, but I doubt it’s right. It’s like the reactor chip is missing, but the only way that thing would’ve even budged is if someone-” You stopped in your tracks as Din lifted a gloved hand into your peripheral view, the small reactor chip held between his fingers for you to see.

You paused a moment before turning your head dangerously towards your companion. He could see the corners of your lips twitching as you did everything you could to avoid a smile, and he remained grateful for his helmet as it hid his beaming face from view.

You snatched the chip from his hand and looked back to your circuits. “Get out of my cockpit,” you said quietly, the last few words of your threat lost to your laughter. Din couldn’t stop his own laughter from coming through the modulator as he began getting up from the floor to do as he was told. “You’re making the ration packs tonight,” you added, the smile on your cheeks evident in your voice.

"This is the way."

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