This fic jumps very rapidly between being suggestive and philosophical, I apologise for which. Couldn't help it given that the main theme is indecency, honestly.
It doesn't rain often on Nevarro.
Over time, Din had got used to the dry, irritating air that always hangs like a cloud over everyone, nearly visible even though it's the same one they breathe, so rain is always an occasion that he quietly cherishes. For a few hours, everything settles, even the dirt, and the world is impossibly quiet.
The impression is even stronger here, in Cara's new makeshift home, behind the closed windows. It's warm and dry and calm and she's scrubbing the mud off of her armour at the other end of her too-hard couch, quiet as she always is when she knows he's going through something that needs assimilating. It's a favour he always returns easily – they make a good team in that sense as well. There's nothing like the comfort that wordless support offers, especially if it's coming from her.
Still, he feels the need to explain himself.
"It must look ridiculous," he says at last. Honestly, he feels ridiculous, at least when he tries to imagine himself from her eyes. The other Mandalorians certainly seem to feel that way.
To his immense relief, Cara shakes her head.
"Everyone has their beliefs. It's not ridiculous to me."
She doesn't face him as she speaks, but Din doesn't need her to – she would never lie, least of all about something like this. Cara, strange as it might sound to an outsider, is the most disarmingly honest person he knows. "Because until yesterday, I was the only Mandalorian you'd ever known."
She shrugs. "Not really. I was a soldier, remember? You meet all sorts of people during wars. Figured it was a tradition I hadn't heard about before – planets aren't monoliths, you know? I'm sure my family's life and that of the royal houses of Alderaan were very different where traditions were concerned. Doesn't mean either of us was wrong."
She's so open about everything; he's almost jealous. He is jealous, if he's honest with himself – something that Din generally prefers not to be where Cara is involved.
"No one tried to convince you that you had to do things their way or you'd be disowned, though, did they?"
The scrubbing stops abruptly. "People teach their children the things they themselves believe. Nothing more, nothing less." She does look up now, and that's disarming, too – her eyes are infinitely kind and understanding, even for a struggle that's never been hers. For all her lack of tact, Cara's got a heart of gold somewhere deep down, shielded even from her own gaze. "They taught you what they thought was right. Now that you're older, you can take it or leave it."
Deep, deep down.
"It's not that easy." To her, it must be, if she's quite so nonchalant about it. Then again, Cara's nonchalant about most things, especially when it comes to decency, Din thinks and immediately stomps the thought down. With the same focus that he'd used to avoid studying the new modifications to her armour, he trains his eyes on her face and the brand under her eye; one she'd put there herself and wears proudly regardless of the history she has with the New Republic. She's not big on hiding anything, come to think of it. "Physically, yes, I can do what I want. But it feels— wrong. For others, too. Every time they pull their helmets off—"
It's unorthodox is what it is, but he can't say that and expect her not to laugh at him – it's too much, even for the 'live and let live' sort of ideology that seems to drive her.
It had been surreal, seeing Cara and Greef watch his fellow Mandalorians reveal their faces for the first time; almost as surreal as when he had watched it happen himself. Cara had dutifully looked away and Bo-Katan had had the audacity to give him the most incredulous look he'd ever seen, as if to chide him for putting his friends through this, and had promptly greeted with an, "You may open your eyes. I have nothing to hide."
Ironically, Din's first reaction had been to clench his own eyes shut in anticipation of the inevitable interrogation, even though no one could see it.
"How forward." The pleased purr from Cara's general direction is precisely what he'd expected. "We haven't even been introduced yet." Predictably, she'd stepped forward to do just that. "Cara Dune."
"Bo-Katan of Clan Kryze." She'd smiled ever so slightly and Din had had to suppress a very unfortunate surge of unearned possessiveness before it had managed to fully take shape. What does this kind of freedom feel like? He'd pondered it for all of a moment before looking away from the undergoing staring contest in front of him, but he ponders it again now as he watches Cara, unmasked and willing for him to read any part of her he can get to. She has different defences, of course, but he likes to think he'd learnt to look past them some time ago. To take it in as greedily as he is and still feeling restricted from returning the gesture stings just as it had stung back during that first encounter. "Your friend is a little more devout than the rest of us is all."
Din had done what he could to tune them out after that, entirely disinclined to listen to the flirting that would ensue – there had been no doubt about it, really, considering the way the conversation had started. Any unease he might have felt towards the realisation that he'd given his new friend a less than accurate representation for all of Mandalore had shifted into unease towards the fact that his newer friend – associate, more like – had clarified the misunderstanding and had still accepted the come-on for what it'd been.
"It's indecent," he says at last, meeting Cara's curious eyes – not that she would know. She shouldn't be able to tell, but the way her gaze pierces straight through the helmet and into the heart of him feels intimate in an entirely different way. "To me. It's business as usual for them, but with what I've been taught— It feels as if they haven't earned those armours. There are ways to repent for taking it off in front of others, but if I'm talking about repentance, then I suppose I am a religious zealot."
"Din, no." Cara forgets about her own armour altogether, one hand resting on his shoulder; a caress as much as it is a comfort. He does his best not to shiver. "Your belief is your own. You can't – shouldn't – force anyone else to follow it, but you're allowed to feel that way." And, as if she understands the main source of his struggle, she goes on, grip reassuringly firm. "If it's difficult to accept it at first, try to think of them as you would of anyone else who isn't a Mandalorian. Do I look indecent to you?"
"What?" Din stumbles. Falls. Directly off an edge and into a conversation that they are not having.
Cara doesn't seem to have got that particular memo. "I don't have a helmet either. Do you think I'm being indecent?"
Right now, out of the usual clothes he's always seen her in, she definitely is; her lack of helmet is the least of his troubles. She's dressed in trousers just as tight as her armour's lower half if seemingly softer, and a tantalisingly loose tank top held in place by two flimsy straps that meet at the back of her neck. It's the kind of thing that must be perfect for her training routine; simple and functional. He's rarely hated anything more.
"Lacking a helmet isn't optimal in any armour," Din manages at last, gritting his teeth when Cara's only response is to click her tongue in obvious disapproval for his omitting tactics. "It's different for you. You have nothing to hide."
"And they do?" You do? With anyone else, it would have been an obvious continuation, but if she'd as much as thought it, Cara blessedly keeps it to herself. "Where do you draw the line between what's decent for you and the rest of the Galaxy?"
She's baiting a reaction out of him – any reaction, no matter where it takes her – and it's so, so difficult to be as rational about it as he wants to be. His hands itch to press into her sides, to feel if she's as pliant and firm as he imagines; to pull the sorry excuse for a cover up over her head and get his mouth on the bandeau wrapped around her chest until he can snap it off of her. It's the most pleasant torture he'd ever known and for a fleeting moment, he wonders if she knows it, too; if she can tell what she's doing.
"Well?" Her voice is a low, inviting rumble – just like the one he'd heard when she'd first met his fellow Mandalorians. How forward. She's a tease on her most well-behaved days and when Din makes the mistake of looking her in the eye, the liquid heat there sparks to life when she grins back at him. She knows.
"I know indecency when I see it," he says, tone strangled with too many conflicting emotions for him to count. If this is an attempt to snap him out of his self-pity for long enough for him to remember that he'd been disgruntled at her own forwardness – regrettably, directed away from him for a while – it's working. "Trust me on that."
"That's not an answer." Cara lets go of his shoulder and he almost protests – even under the beskar, it feels like she'd taken all of the warmth in the room away along with her touch. Seemingly done with her armour, she reaches for something on the small table in the middle of the room and moves on to brushing her hair with the serenity of a woman without a care in the world. "But I'll allow it. It's all about finding some common ground, see? A little scandal won't kill you."
"Perhaps not," he concedes, drawn back into her space as if by gravity; a force stronger than any of his convictions could ever possibly be.
A little scandal won't, but you just might.