Chapter Text
"Don't you mean your donor?"
Din's comm beeps at max volume, startling at least half the room. Bo-Katan's gaze is cutting, but she's become a pinprick in Din's vision. His comm doesn't make so much noise for just any contact.
Landed, the message reads. On my way to you.
Din's fist tightens around the words as the first real tendrils of hope swath him like a child. Before this moment, getting the kid back has been a mission, one he is certain to accomplish. But this, this brightens the fearful, grim determination that's haunted him ever since those things took Grogu.
It's amazing, what one person can do.
"What is it?" Fett murmurs.
Din raises his head. "One of our allies just arrived on-planet. He's been busy helping relocate our covert, but he volunteered when I told him about the kid."
Fett nods. "Then perhaps we don't need this."
Bo-Katan's eyes narrow. "I don't have to listen to you."
As Fett steps forward, Din sighs internally and types a quick Hurry up. He's barely sent it before the doors slide open and absolute silence seizes every throat in the cantina.
Din had been victim to the same feeling the first time he'd met him. Something sharp and cold breathes through Cin'ciri's armor, a hollow frost that can flash freeze an entire town if he wants. But he never does. Despite whatever follows his shadow, Cin'ciri hates attention as much as Din.
Contained snowstorm aside, though, Cin'ciri's solid red armor catches eyes as much as Din's unpainted beskar. The mourning grey of his pauldrons, the borders of his visor, and kar'ta beskar are the only pinpricks of relief for onlookers, snow drowning in a pool of blood. To many, it's terrifying.
Din's heart hammers when he sees the mudhorn displayed proudly on Cin'ciri's right shoulder. When Cin'ciri cups the back of his helmet, he sways into him, their helmets making a soft clink as they touch, and something settles.
Din feels so warm he could weep, gulping his first real breath in days. Cin'ciri rumbles quietly, a sound from under their thin blanket at the home that no longer is.
Fuck it. Din snatches him close and squeezes his eyes shut. Whispers erupt around them. Just this once, he doesn't let himself care.
Cin'ciri pauses, shocked at such a public display. But Din's come to find he rarely denies him anything. As they embrace, Din feels Cin'ciri's finger tap three times in the small space between his helmet and shoulder.
Din clears his throat and pulls back, hands settling on Cin'ciri's elbows. "I'm alright."
Cin'ciri nods in a way that tells Din he very much doubts it, but he knows there's work to be done.
"So who's this?" Fett asks. Din swears he sounds amused.
Cheeks heating like a child, Din moves to clasp Cin'ciri's shoulder and turns. "This is my comrade, Cin'ciri."
"Comrade, huh?"
Fett is definitely teasing.
"And my husband," Din concedes.
Cin'ciri puts his fist against his chest. He then uses GSS to say, 'Well met. I'm here to assist however I can.' Din translates word for word.
Fett replies, 'Well met, warrior.'
Cin'ciri huffs, pleasantly surprised. 'I've heard much about you, Boba Fett.'
"Only good things, I hope," Fett drawls aloud.
Cin'ciri sweeps his hand before saying with dramatic gesticulations, 'Only the best.'
Fett snorts. "You've got taste, Mandalorian," he tells Din.
Din shakes his head, hand falling to his side. "I am very fortunate."
"What now?" Bo-Katan snaps, "I assume you have a reason for seeking me out."
The temperature doesn't plummet so much as gradually and inescapably decline. In the space he occupies in Din's heart, Din knows it's somehow Cin'ciri. After all he's learned, Din wonders if he's got the Jedi magic. It wouldn't be too much. He's not in the habit of lifting things with his mind or healing injuries without bacta, but his shadows are not always the same shape, and there is no way an ordinary sentient could make it to the cantina from the shipyard so fast.
Maybe...maybe Cin'ciri can help the kid anyway.
For now, Reeves and Bo-Katan's breath is visible. Din watches their eyes widen and steps between them and his husband, saying, "We didn't come here to fight."
"Speak for yourself," Boba mumbles.
Din barely holds back a sigh. "You're after Moff Gideon. He's the one who took the child."
The temperature eases to manageable. Quite a few patrons have left by now. The owner will probably throw the Mandalorians out soon for disrupting business.
Thankfully, Bo-Katan's interest is caught. She stands with a rigid spine. "Yes. He took something from me. I aim to get it back."
Din's head tilts. "Help me rescue the child, and you can have whatever you want. He is my only priority."
Cin'ciri's arm brushes his, an apology. Din nudges back. It's hardly his fault that Grogu's become so important to Din. It's definitely not his fault that Grogu's been taken.
Cin'ciri sighs like he could have prevented everything. Din often makes the same noise. He hadn't realized it until they'd met.
Bo-Katan smiles like the bounty hunters she scorns. "It's a deal."
'I can find him.'
Din doesn't exactly know how his head's gotten into Cin'ciri's lap, in Fett's bunk, but he's not complaining. "We will once we get Cara," he says.
Cin'ciri shakes his head. With more pronounced movement he repeats, 'I can find him, Din.'
"How?"
'Take off your helmet.'
Din huffs. "Really? Now?"
Cin'ciri knocks sharply on his helmet, a clear Shut up, you idiot.
Din eyes the door. It's thin security at best despite Fett's promise he and his husband could rest undisturbed during the trip to Nevarro. Cin'ciri clicks his tongue to get his attention back.
'It will be fine. I promise.'
Cin'ciri always fulfills his oaths. Swallowing, Din slowly removes his helmet. He blinks under the weak old light above them. He obediently closes his eyes when Cin'ciri thumbs underneath one of them.
The hiss of another helmet's seal soon follows. Cin'ciri follows the Creed in the presence of clan as well, his first condition of accepting Din's suit. The trust Cin'ciri pays Din not to look is humbling.
Din has no idea how this will help find Grogu, but the song Cin'ciri hums under his breath is soothing the headache that's been plaguing him since Grogu's capture. When Cin'ciri tugs at his shoulder, he rolls onto his side with a long sigh, grunting as his husband gently massages the back of his neck.
How the hell had he landed someone like this?
The face watching Din fall asleep is not a face. The skin is twisted like a beginner's pottery. Hollow craters and misplaced patches of what might be hair rend it almost invisible. Somehow, two human-looking eyes have survived the mess, one near the top of the head(?) and one near where a nose should be. They stare at the Mandalorian with softness. This Mandalorian, who opens his arms in the middle of Cin'ciri's cold, who never complains about not seeing what's under his helmet.
After the War, after the Empire, Cin'ciri had hated his face. The thing shared by his brothers like the chips in their heads.
CC-1010, former Commander Fox of the Fallen Republic, has no idea how Din Djarin loves him. A coward who'd let conditioned fear keep him, a Giant, trapped in mortal bones under a Sith. The one who'd been right under the Chancellor's nose and never realized what the fuck he was. He, who has run from his brothers, is cherished by the gentlest human predator in the galaxy.
Fox's droning melody should make Din tremble. It is something only the unknowable recognize, yet Din has admitted it helps him sleep better than anything. What does Din hear in it, this pulsing, scratchy thing that rakes screams inside others?
The child Din adores will not find it comforting. Fox is a starving creature inside and out, a looming threat. Force users See too much. But Din needs him, so Fox will retrieve him.
The craters undulate as Fox Reaches, human eyelids watching Din as stars and planets coagulate in Fox's skin. Din stirs slightly, snuffling in his sleep, but he doesn't wake. Such an anomaly of a man. Fox loves him with the same burning that births and kills galaxies.
Come on, kid, he thinks, Don't be scared. Come on.
Tiny and bright. Innocent and not. Grogu, Din had said. Needs a Jedi's training. Fox has no respect for Jedi, but a Jedi had killed the Empire.
The kid latches on with claws that make Fox wince in surprise. Din's face under his hands ground him to the moment. Grogu doesn't care what Fox is. He's desperate enough to respond to any call.
Dangerous. He's lucky it's Fox.
Din really should've contacted him first.
A very un-Jedi hatred and fear simmers in the child. Fox forces himself to ignore it. He'd be fucking seething too. He prods an image of a light cruiser wrapped in a question.
A familiar voice echoes back. "We can strike a deal."
Din. A lipless mouth crackles into a fanged grin between craters.
Grogu's presence writhes when Fox shows him his own memories of Din. The claws try to dig deeper, reverberating a myriad of little comments Din has made to Grogu during their time together—My husband likes speeders too. Cin'ciri, it means snow. Just wait until you meet him; you won't get away with this under his watch. You'd like him. He's quiet. Good.
Din thinks he's good.
Din grunts in his sleep. Fox loosens his grip on his nape and continues his song, sending an affirmative to the kid.
Grogu's presence solidifies in his mind. It's far off, but distance means nothing.
Fox returns to his body, to Cin'ciri. He replaces his helmet and taps Din, loathe as he is to wake him up. Din's eyelids twitch, but he doesn't open them until Cin'ciri taps him again.
'Thank you,' Cin'ciri says.
Din rubs his eyes. "What for?"
'Lie down. I'll be right back.'
It's a testament to how tired Din is that he doesn't object, putting his helmet back on and rolling fully onto Boba's cot when Cin'ciri stands.
Fox makes sure he's gone back to sleep before approaching the door. He palms it open and steps onto a light cruiser's bridge.