Self Indulgant | Din Djarin Collection

Touch

The first time her hands touched his skin, it was by accident.

She had finally gotten Grogu to settle into bed after humming him sweet lilting tunes from her childhood, but it was well into the night and the lights on the way to her bunk were already shut off. Not wanting to wake her young charge after putting so much effort into getting him to sleep, she took to stumbling down the rather short hall to her bunk. She thought the distance would be easy to navigate, but when the ship lurched she was caught off guard and let herself fall against the nearest wall. 

If not for the rush of blood in her ears she might have heard the Mandalorian come from the cockpit, cursing the Crest in all its broken down glory. He strode across the ship with purpose, in search of the source of the outage, only to nearly stumble upon the lithe human girl who was still struggling to catch her breath.

She never was a fan of flying, much preferring deadly battles with both feet planted firmly on the surface of a planet. On the ground, there was nearly always an escape but a ship? Being on a ship made her feel undeniably trapped, but she did it for the kid, for him.

The bounty hunter stopped beside her a moment, regarding her shaky form as she pushed herself off the wall only for the ship to drop again. The sudden motion sent her flying, or, it would have had the Mandalorian not grabbed her arm in his own and taken the brunt of the fall against the side of the hallway. 

Neither were sure when it happened, but sometime between the unceremonious lurching of the ship and the Mandalorian quite literally dragging her through the ship alongside him while he searched for the source of their problems, her hand wrapped tightly around his wrist. She told herself it was to steady herself without having to rely on him beyond that, but with every slip of the ship his arm would still wrap around to keep her upright or if it couldn't, would pull her into his chest plate as they both toppled. 

It wasn't until Mando found the fried wires and stabilizer that he realized her grip on him, having been far too focused on steadying the ship. As the ship lurched a final time, her hand slipped, nearly taking his glove with it, and her fingers so delicately brushed the skin between his sleeve and his glove. 

The bounty hunter took a sharp intake of breath, and his helmeted gaze shot her direction as he continued to pull at the wires. The moment the girl realized what she had felt, she flung her hand away from him as though his skin burned, just in time for the ship to tilt precariously as Mando finally reconnected the copper wires and pulled out the faulty stabilizer.

He almost wished his helmet had worse night vision, as the panic on her face just before her head hit the wall was only more reason for him to wonder why he couldn't reach out to grab her. All he could think about was the softness of her hands as he watched her helplessly crumple to the ground. 

The second time he felt her skin against his was after she found him collapsed just in front of the Crest, the sand around him slowly turning red.

Cursing all the way, she dragged his limp body into the ship and closed the hangar door before running to grab a medkit from her room, her last medkit. Steadying her shaky hands, she searched for the source of blood and was quick to find what looked to be a knife wound in his side. Someone knowledgeable in the ways of Mandalorian armor had slipped a knife between the beskar, and even to her trained eyes, it did not look good.