Armored Passion | The Mandalorian

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"Mae-"

"Get out," I mutter under my breath, cutting him off before he could even say anything else to me. I was afraid that if I actually let him speak, I might just break down in front of him and never stop crying. So instead of look up at him, I snatch up a clean set of undergarments from one of the tall shelves in my room, tightly wrapping my fingers around the black articles of smooth clothing. 

"Mae, please," he says, shaking his head while pushing off of the wall he had been leaning against this whole time. His persistent tone makes something deep down in my chest twinge, but I don't dare let it show on my face. 

All I really wanted to do was run over to him and crush him in a tight hug to make sure that he was really standing there and to make sure that it wasn't just my mind playing tricks on me, but I couldn't bring myself to any of that right now. I couldn't even get my feet to move in his direction no matter how much I wanted to. 

"Get out," I repeat with a little more effort as my voice struggled to sound out. 

There were several ways that this conversation could go, and I wasn't sure which way it was going to end, but I was afraid of all the options we had regardless. I felt like I would either snap and explode with anger or drop to my knees and start crying. Neither option was necessarily ideal for me, but I already knew the conversation was going to be painful. 

"Would you just listen to me for a few seconds?" he finally snaps, sounding annoyed with the fact I wasn't paying him any mind as I had been lost deep in thought. I clench my jaw as his rough voice snapped at me. 

"Look, I can't even think properly when you're standing right there so just- just give me a second, okay?" I snap back, letting my fingers dig into my thin undergarments even more. My teeth grind against each other for a few moments and I decided that I was going to have to calm down before speaking again. 

I quickly turn away from him and step behind the paneled room divider near the far wall, making sure I was out of his line of sight before dropping my towel. I hang it over the top of one of the tall panels, slipping my undergarments on with ease. 

The thin black cloth of my undergarments rests against my olive-brown skin, accentuating my curves perfectly while covering everything I wanted to keep hidden. I mentally curse myself out for not grabbing my actual clothes before coming back here, but I quickly come to terms with it and get over myself. It's not like he hasn't seen me like this before. 

Then again, it's been two years and he hasn't seen the collection of all the new scars I had acquired through all of my matches in this stupid fight club, but who's going to stop me now?

I step out from the safety of the divider and walk back over to the tall shelf that held all of my neatly folded clothes. Mando not so subtly averts his gaze from me, awkwardly clearing his throat while rolling his broad shoulders back. I take a deep breath and continue to stare at the stacks of all my clothes for a few moments. 

"I'm kind of losing my mind right now because there's a lot of things I want to say to you, but there's also a lot of things I would rather keep to myself so... I'm going to be honest with you and let you know that this might be the only time I have enough courage to even talk about our situation and whatever it was that happened back on that shit-storm of a planet. So, for the sake of both of our sanities, I'm gonna try and filter out my thought as nicely as I can," I rush out, trying to keep my voice steady as I spoke. 

I felt like I could barely even talk right now. It was like my mind was trying to stop me from getting a single word out. 

I open my mouth to speak again, but I suddenly feel his gloved fingertips graze over the smooth skin of my lower back, tracing over a slow-fading scar from a particular blaster shot that reminded me a little too much of the day I had been left behind. He traces the outer lining of the scar and my body tenses up even more as I suck in a sharp breath.