The echo of Cobb's footsteps had long faded by the time Din snapped out of his shock and forced himself to move. The corridor he was locked in turned out to be a dead end. It must have been used as storage of some kind before it had been given up on or cleared for the very purpose it served now. He found a few empty crates that would be of little help in aiding his escape and the walls and ceiling seemed to be made of solid duraplast.
Din rotated his shoulder carefully using his other arm for support, but the pain didn't spike. Nothing was broken, then. It would heal and for now it was enough that the ache simmered low enough that he could ignore it while paced the confines of his prison, debating whether the explosive charges he carried would be enough to blast his way through the door, the one weak point he'd been able to identify. If he was unlucky, it might instead bring the place down on top of him instead. He would not take that option unless it was as a last resort.
There was no lock on the inside and no controls he could temper with. Din tried to comm Greef and Cara but to no avail. This bunker had to have thick walls, or it was shielded in some other way by a signal-blocker. Would anyone get suspicious when he failed to pick up Grogu? Would they come looking for him? Did they even stand a chance of finding him out here?
Cobb –
He couldn't focus on that now. He had to get out of here. He'd deal with marshal Vanth then.
If he couldn't count on help from his friends, Din would have to use his enemies. He listened, but there was no sound to give away the presence of others.
The antigrav technology on the crates did not function and he laboriously dragged one after the other closer towards the door, stacking them in a pile that provided him with a modicum of cover, sufficient to protect him from prying eyes and from blaster fire in equal measure. He couldn't get out, but there was a chance someone would come for him and when they did, he would be ready.
He only hoped it would be before he died of dehydration.
Ignoring the persistent, dry itch of thirst, Din turned off the light and settled down.
The waiting was the hardest part.
Young hot-bloods all thought bounty hunting was an endless stretch of binges in seedy cantinas, speederbike chases and shootouts. They craved the adventure, the stigma but couldn't bear the building discomfort of sitting still. Din was seasoned enough to know how to lie in wait. With all the preparations done though, all he could do now was listen to the jarring scream of his racing thoughts.
To face the reality that Cobb had betrayed him.
He'd thought the marshal was different. He'd trusted Cobb. Had trusted him with his life, with Grogu's wellbeing.
Stars, Grogu.
Was there another bounty on him? Was this what this was about? To get Din out of the way? But Cobb hated the Imps as much as any native from Tatooine and he'd never given the impression of caring for credits.
If it wasn't about money though… it had to be personal.
Had Din really crossed a line so severe that this was the only answer that Cobb had for him? He'd thought they'd grown close yet… how much of it had been an act on marshal Vanth's part?
It wasn't –
Cobb wouldn't –
Din almost laughed, hysterical. Here he was, stuck in some underground cell and still making excuses for the other man. He'd let his feelings cloud his judgment. He had been a di'kut.
The moments Cobb had spent with him and Grogu, they had been some of the best in the recent years. When he closed his eyes, Din could see the interior of Cobb's home rendered in more detail than a holopic could provide him. The marshal smiling as he talked to a transfixed Grogu.
Story time.
Like a broken recording intent upon torturing him, Din could picture Cobb's amazement when Din had first taken him up to see the stars, the passionate way he'd talked about the aqueduct, the perceptive glances Cobb used to steal his way, the barely-there smiles he always seemed to carry tucked into a corner of his mouth.
The understanding rode in the wake of a wave of self-loathing; that of all things, he missed Cobb. He should be furious. Din had been betrayed before, even by allies. We kill you and we strip your body for parts. He may have forgiven Karga, but he didn't forget and while they had shared a work relationship in a cutthroat business, Cobb had been so much more.
Stars, you're naïve.
Din had entrusted Cobb with his vulnerability. He'd entrusted him with his name.
And he knew now, hours too late to correct his mistake.
Din knew why this hurt so much.
o
There was no way to clock the passage of time and Din conserved his energy, fitfully drifting in and out of consciousness sitting up and ready to jump into action the moment he heard the door being tempered with. When he snapped awake once more, his HUD told him it was nearing midday – he had been in here almost a full day and he hadn't heard or seen anyone come or go. Something had woken him up though and he was experienced enough a hunter to trust in his instincts.
Only not when it came to his friends, it seemed.
Don't think about it.
There.
Footsteps. Slow and careful. Somebody was approaching.
Din got to a crouch and peered through the gap that allowed him to keep the door in his sights.
The steps came closer.
Stopped.
Whoever they were, they had to be just on the other side of the door. Din silently checked his weapons and prepared himself for the impending fight when –
"You sure?" a man asked, quiet but resonating in the empty space and Din's breath hitched. He would know that Tatooine accent, the cadence of his voice, anywhere.
"Alright, kid, wanna do the honours with that pushee?"
What did it say about Din then, that the first thing he felt was a flicker of happiness?
Then there was a click, and another lower mutter that Din's was able to pick up on only because of the fine tuning of his audio receptors.
"S' dark as a bantha's backside in here."
More shuffling and when he deemed it close enough, Din made his move, flinging himself from behind his hiding place.
"Step away from him," Din said before the marshal could draw his blaster and thanked his stars that his voice did not waver. When Din turned on his light, Vanth recoiled and raised an arm to protect himself from the sudden brightness that cast his form in stark shadows. Behind him, Grogu let out a happy gurgle and the relief hit Din full-tilt. Thank the Force, at least the kid was alright.
Vanth on the other hand blinked against the harsh glare and his eyes went wide at the sight of the blaster trained on his chest. "Excuse me!? What's with the blaster?"
"I won't ask again," Din told him and pushed between the other man and the pram before the marshal could regain his wits. With his back to the exit, Din grabbed the edge of the hoverpod and dragged it behind him so that his own body could serve as a shield as he walked backwards towards the door.
"You can explain yourself later," Din told Vanth coldly. Vanth hadn't moved and he looked at Din like… like he had lost his mind.
"Explain what?"
Din grit his teeth, the audacity of the statement catching him like a blow from a blind angle. He sensed rather than saw Grogu stir and when the kid tried to climb out of his pram he lightly pushed him back inside with one hand without looking backwards, his entire focus on the man before him.
"What is this game?" Din demanded to know, anger clouding every syllable. Anyone else he would have shot on sight. What did justifications matter when actions spoke more clearly? But… he wanted to know. Needed to know why. Why everyone in his life ended up turning against him.
Vanth shook his head, eyes wide. "I was looking for you," he said. "I came back like agreed and found the Crest empty."
Something about this didn't sit right. He was still wearing the same clothes he had left this – yesterday, Din corrected – morning in.
What – ?
Was this another trick?
"I didn't know where you went," Vanth continued, gesturing animatedly between them, "you didn't leave a note – I picked up Grogu and came to find you."
At the sound of his name Grogu let out a soft croon and moved again, his second attempt of escaping the hoverpod thwarted by Din pulling him back by the hem of his robe.
What the marshal said couldn't be true, could it?
Din had never known Cobb to be deceitful.
And yet, here he was and… here they were. Marshal Vanth rescuing him like he wasn't the one who'd put him here in first place.
Vanth took a step closer, heedless that he was one finger's twitch away from having a hole blown through him.
"Hey! Talk to me."
One thing had to be said for marshal Vanth; he was no pushover.
Din shook his head though it helped little to clear his head.
Vanth dropped his arms and he stared at Din as if he didn't know him anymore.
"… Din?"
Din flinched yet saw nothing but care and worry in the other man's face. And Vanth returned the scrutiny, second for slowly trickling second. He didn't appear nervous and he wasn't cold and distant – he never had been.
But Din couldn't risk making another mistake, couldn't put Grogu in danger like that again. He steeled himself, the handle of his blaster digging into his palm.
Behind Din the child let out a displeased grumble and suddenly, a weight settled on Din's arm. Gentle at first and then insistent, like an invisible force that steadily pushed downwards. When Din chanced a glance back, Grogu held an arm extended, eyes half-lidded in concentration.
A look that Din knew all too well.
"Grogu, stop!"
Din had never had been on the receiving end of Grogu's powers, but he'd seen the little one lift an entire mudhorn. He didn't stand a chance. His muscles screamed in protest and then the blaster was too heavy to hold up all of a sudden. His arm fell to his side, useless, and the pressure eased.
Grogu blinked up at Din.
He looked even smaller than usual, bundled up in his oversized robe and with his ears drooping unhappily even as a sad whimpering noise escaped him. An apology, perhaps, or a plea.
Din's shoulders dropped as he dry-swallowed. His ad might not be able to speak but he could make his intentions clear nonetheless. Even as Grogu struggled to keep his eyes open, Din felt an unfamiliar feeling lap at the edges of his mind like cool water poured over a burn: calm and…
Trust.
Breathing hard, Din slowly turned around again. Vanth had watched in silence, hadn't made a move though he well might have seized the moment of distraction.
"What was the first thing I said to you?" Din asked , feeling more trapped all of a sudden than he had with that door still sealed.
"First thing you said to me," Vanth repeated, his face flittering past frustration and through a galaxy's worth of confusion as he searched his memory.
"Was 'I've been searching for you for many parsecs'. And the lil' one, he hopped right into the spittoon when that dragon passed."
Din couldn't make heads or tails of any of it, but without a trace of doubt, it was Cobb.
"Din, what happened?" It was the same tone one might use on a spooked eopie.
"There was someone," Din began, a curious, empty buzzing filling his head over the pounding headache he had endured over the past hours. "Someone who looked like you."
"Looked like me." Cobb sniffed, ran a rough hand over his mouth. "Okay."
"You don't understand," Din ground out. "It was you, Cobb."
"You're right, I don't understand," Cobb said. He heaved a deep breath into his lungs and pointed a thumb at the door. "Can we get out of here now?"
This time, Din made sure to clear the door first. Cobb followed more slowly, looking around.
"What is this place?"
"Old Imperial facility," Din replied, reeling like a ship with misaligned engines. He hadn't realized he was still holding on to the edge of the hoverpod until Grogu's claws closed around one of his fingers. The child looked at peace now, half asleep. Din traced his thumb over the back of Grogu's hand, dwarfed by his own and wondered.
How, after everything Grogu had been through, could he still find it in himself to trust?
But if he could do it, so could Din. And with the thought came the realization that during their exchange, Cobb hadn't once gone for his blaster.
"We're here," Din began slowly, stopping at the intersection of corridors. "Might as well have a look."
Cobb nodded and took point, the light of Din's lamp providing enough illumination for him to see the way ahead. Something in Din relaxed upon being able to keep him in his sights, at least until Cobb spoke again.
"Anyway," Cobb tossed Din's way like one might throw a scrap to a street mutt that one didn't want to come too close to for fear it might bite, "I know who killed Wicker."
Din stopped in his tracks. "What?"
"I found his ghost." Cobb kept walking, "screaming himself hoarse in the Magistrate's place when I picked up the little guy. Wasn't that why you wanted me along?"
"Yes. Wait! Who – ?"
"Darew Blott."
"Blott," Din repeated, dumbly. They passed a few more rooms, all empty and cleared out until they came to a larger cavern. Still expecting an ambush, Din sent Grogu's pod back a couple of steps. But the room was empty save for a few vehicles and a large, sturdy gate. It was hooked up to a power cell, fully charged.
And there were heat signatures, all over the place. Somebody, several people by the looks of their footprints, had been here, and recently. No wonder Din hadn't been able to hear a thing if this place had a back entrance. A slumped form in the corner caught his attention.
Cobb noticed it too.
"Is that a body?" Cobb asked, drawing closer.
It was. The corpse was at least a few days old, the body practically mummified and without any signs of rot.
"That's… Blott." Cobb said bending over the shriveled remains of what had once been a person.
The dry air and hot winds must have dried it out, but there was no mistaking the patterns on the skin, waxy and greying as it appeared in death.
"Din." Cobb sounded uneasy now. "There is no way this could have happened since yesterday."
"No," Din agreed. He'd seen Blott, they both had. He'd been with Rednyll when he had requested those lists, alive and healthy.
Din's blood ran cold. Someone was impersonating Blott and –
Somebody had impersonated Cobb.
"Clawdite," Din murmured, squeezing his eyes shut.
Cobb's head snapped up. "Say again?"
"A shapeshifter."
Cobb stemmed both hands in his hips and faced Din. "I'm gonna be real honest with you, partner," Cobb pressed out. "I'm karking pissed you'd think I would – what?"
"Not sure about that," Din mumbled. "I guess beskar is easier to collect off a corpse than a living Mandalorian."
"If I cared so much about the armour, I wouldn't have offered to trade you mine!"
Grogu had been right to stop him.
Faced with the real marshal Vanth Din wondered how he could have ever been so stupid as to fall for an imposter. He felt sick. Or maybe it was the dehydration, but he owed Cobb an apology that he would never be able to fully deliver on.
"Son of a worrtfucker," Cobb cursed into the silence and kicked a pebble, sending it skittering into the darkness. "You should have commed."
"I tried. Nothing gets through these walls."
Cobb cursed again, more colourfully this time. Woken by the profanity, Grogu giggled. Knowing Din's luck, the child would probably pick up on Vanth's language.
"Cobb, I'm – "
"Save it," Cobb cut in, one finger raised like a point being made. "First, I got a bone to pick with whoever took my face and locked you in there. "Well, at least we got a ride back," the marshal muttered, turning to a hovercraft that looked to be in decent shape. "Might make it by sundown."
"Cobb," Din tried again when he felt a tremor pass through him, his body's way of telling him that he was on a timer. He rested some of his weight against the vehicle and waited for it to pass. "I'm not asking you to come with me."
"Oh, I'm coming alright." Cobb's tone did not leave room for argument even if Din had any energy to spare for such a thing. "I'm good at revenge," the marshal all but growled, teeth bared something feral that had licked blood and wanted more. "Had a lot of practice."
Din nodded, his eyes drawn over and over to the marshal's form, the determined, stubborn set of his shoulders and jaw. "You got any water with you?"
Cobb's face fell, eyes widening. "Oh. No. I'm sorry."
Din nodded again and swung himself into the driver's seat. "Crest first," he decided. He wasn't sure how long he could continue in his current state, but if he keeled over now it wouldn't do either of them any good. For now it was enough to have the marshal back at his side. Everything else could wait.
The last daylight bled out over the black hills surrounding Nevarro city when they made it back.
Din downed two canteens of water, the first mouthful going down like swallowing shards of glass. After that, he couldn't have stopped if he wanted to. Din waited while his body adjusted to the change, using the time to scope out the docks. The far end was dark, but that had never been a deterrent to him and it didn't take him long to spot the unfamiliar ship parked right outside the last warehouse with shadowy figures hurriedly skittering about.
Din sealed Grogu in the bunk and, figuring there was little point in subtlety, dropped the Crest right in the smugglers' midst. The ramp had no sooner opened than he already descended on them with a vengeance that he didn't usually feed into when on a job.
Two of the men caught by surprise out in the open fell with blaster shots through their chests before they could so much as scream.
The rest, unfortunately, were either smart or cowardly enough to seek shelter and the first shots were returned his way. Two blasts ricocheted off Din's armour in rapid succession, doing nothing to slow him down. The chaos of battle was familiar territory for him. He put down another man he recognized from Rednyll's dossier as one of the workers when he made the mistake of peeking around the warehouse's corner.
Din continued on when he found himself face to face with –
Cobb.
Din's shot went wide.
It's not him! a part of his mind screamed at him but the split second of hesitation gave his opponent the opening he needed.
The stun charge hit Din in an electric arc of dazzling blue light and although the beskar provided a modicum of protection, the ground nonetheless rushed up to meet him. Din hit it flat, all air knocked out of his lungs.
"Sunuvaschutta," someone above pressed out indistinctly. It sounded very far away.
Din's muscles spasmed with aftershocks from the stun charge, rendered useless. And over the harsh sound of his own ragged breathing he could make out a sharp bout of cruel laughter that morphed into screams of fear and then –
The echoing boom of Cobb's heavy-duty pistol.
Din's arms shook as he strained to push off the ground and managed to do little more than roll over enough to see two more figures drop. Something in him seized to see the man that still wore Cobb's face go down from a headshot.
He was powerless against the flash of fear of what if he had been wrong all along before the crumpled figure's features started to melt like a wax candle, morphing back into his Clawdite form.
Din tore his eyes away and towards the sliver of red at the very edge of his peripheral vision. Cobb had followed him into the fight and Din witnessed the final exchange of shots, only to see Cobb stagger from a blast to the chest.
The dull, meaty thud of a body hitting the ground was the last noise before suffocating silence blanketed the shipyard once more.
Cobb wavered where he stood hunched over, one hand clawed into his maroon shirt.
Din renewed his efforts now that his limbs were beginning to respond. Clumsy and uncoordinated he made it to all fours, then got his feet under him.
Cobb had been shot.
He had to make it to him.
"I'm fine," Cobb wheezed when he noticed Din's struggles and stumbled towards the Crest.
In that bunker, Din had let a stranger he had believed to be Cobb go. He wasn't going to allow the real Cobb to slink away now. Din hurried after the marshal one lurching step after the other, bracing himself against the hull at a precarious lean that threatened to topple him over.
He knew fine.
He had been fine when he had crashed his ship, more holes than hull, and woke up to discover he could not see out of his left eye for almost a week. He had been fine when he had patched himself up countless times with stiff fingers and his own blood drying brown under his fingernails.
And he was having none of it.
"You got shot." Din's voice broke over the threshold of the ramp.
Cobb was still breathing hard yet he shook his head and holstered his weapon. "They missed."
"They didn't miss; I saw the blast hit you." How the other man was even standing was a mystery. His body must not have yet registered the injury. It didn't make it any less deadly.
But he could fix this. Din had a medkit. The scanner was old but it worked and he had stocked up on bacta not too long ago. There had to be some left. He ripped the entire case out of its anchoring, brittle clasps splintering under force of his tug.
Din had not been this afraid for another since Grogu had been taken by the Imperials.
He couldn't lose Cobb now that he'd just gotten him back. Not when he still had so much to make up for. Not when he had promised to take Cobb home again. He would. He'd promised.
"Din, don't," Cobb said with desperation clouding thickly in his throat.
Heedless, Din reached out to hold him, to assure himself that Cobb was alive still, to wrangle this stubborn, proud man into allowing Din to treat him –
"Din." It came out as a plea.
– and his hand did not encounter anything. There was no resistance and Din and Cobb both looked at the russet glove halfway sunk into Cobb's shoulder.
Cobb sighed, dragging his eyes up to meet Din's gaze and Din's breath hitched when the full sorrow displayed so openly on Cobb's face hit him like a train at full speed.
No.
"Wasn't them that shot me, partner." It was far too gentle a way to break such a bitter truth.
"No."
Cobb's look turned apologetic, of all things. "Cad Bane did."
Din squeezed his eyes shut against the crushing reality of what Cobb was telling him. Against the fear splitting him open, inside-out. When he opened them again, he could see the outline of his bunk behind the other man.
"I… I can see through you," Din stuttered. Cobb appeared more like a projection now than a man.
The corner of Cobb's mouth curled in a sputtering tick of a smile. "Kinda exhausted myself back there." He caught Din's eyes again, reeled him in, held him like that, the only way he could. "It's alright," he murmured, "For you, I'd do it again."
Din didn't know whether Cobb meant this or joining Boba's cause, but it didn't matter. Nothing seemed to matter anymore.
"And I wanted to tell you." Cobb's voice wavered, dropped then returned upon a shaky exhale. "I did. But. I didn't know how. I… I enjoyed getting to know you, Din Djarin."
It was that smile that delivered the final blow. The medkit clattered to the floor, spilling its contents.
"Don't go," Din choked around the ragged edges of a sob. Don't leave me. Don't leave me alone again.
"Desert's callin' me home," Cobb breathed dreamily.
"Wait! Wait."
Din grasped for the edge of his helmet and tilted it upwards. He faltered for a second that had too many heartbeats crammed into it to count them and then the seals of his buy'ce unlatched with a punctured hiss.
He had wondered before what Cobb saw when he looked at him. Din trembled with the exposure but he wanted this, wanted Cobb to know him for who he was, his trepidation, his sorrow, all of it down to the grey hairs at his temple.
"No living thing may see my face," Din rasped by way of explanation when Cobb's eyes went wide with shock.
Cobb's answering "ah" was as soft as a caress. He lifted a hand with a slow and cautious reverence and his fingers curled against the curve of Din's cheek like smoke.
Din turned his face into the gesture, but there was nothing there, no touch, not even a trace of a body's warmth. Cobb's expression crumpled into one of wordless devastation.
Din clenched his teeth to keep himself from coming apart, unraveling into the ugly sobs that racked through his gut.
"Buuu ii?"
Din jerked like he'd been stuck with a shock baton. Neither of them had noticed Grogu leave his hiding place. The child hugged Din's boot, barely able to reach past its high rim. His claws pricked into the unprotected hollow of Din's knee, a grounding discomfort.
"Hey, what's that?" Cobb murmured faintly.
Grogu's eyes were on Din's, burning with intent. "Buui."
"I'm. I'm. Not sure."
His son had just called him buir.
Cobb Vanth was dead.
Din's knees hit the floor, accompanied by the pitching feeling of more than just his legs giving out from underneath him. He hugged Grogu close, buried his face into the robe that was once more in need of a wash and let it soak up what tears grief squeezed out of him.
His past was rubble and ashes and a future he had barely dared to hope for was crumbling into dust, but he still had Grogu.
He would always have him.
And they would remain a clan of two.
When Din found the strength to lift his head again, blinking apart the glassy haze, the Crest was empty.
"Cobb? Cobb!"
There was no answer.
"Grogu, where is he?"
The child looked at Din with big sorrowful eyes, his ears dropping and Din knew.
Cobb was gone.
o
Grogu refused to leave his side throughout the next day even going as far as to sink his baby teeth in Greef's hand when he tried to take him off Din for a farewell. Not hard enough to do any real harm or even draw blood, but the High Magistrate recoiled, shaking out his hand.
"What's gotten into him?" Karga asked and Din shrugged.
He'd already delivered his report.
A pair of smugglers had stumbled across the Imperial bunker and the materials stored within. They had recruited four of the workers and shipped the precious metals off-world concealed in containers of soil. Wicker with his habit of taking over his co-workers' shifts must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Blott had probably just been in the way from the beginning.
They were all dead now.
He didn't care about the ghost.
Din collected his pay and left the palace and shortly after, Nevarro. He spent the remainder of the day adrift in orbit.
"I'm alright," Din said in answer to a soft coo, lilting with a question the child could not form yet.
He wasn't.
In the past hours, Din had found himself more than once jerking back into the here and now to tiny but pointy claws digging into the soft spots that the beskar did not cover.
No, he wasn't alright but he had to be, for Grogu's sake.
He would be.
But as of right now, he wasn't. Cobb had taken more with him than his easygoing, unimposing presence.
He'd taken a part of Din with him.
The absence of him settled heavily on Din's heart, on par with the accumulated weight of the losses he had suffered, gathering them close over the span of a life that had, against all the odds, not ended in a dark bunker on Aq Vetina some thirty-five years ago.
Memories were all he had left; they made for poor companions and the only sort of real tenderness he had shared had been with an imposter. And it had been good. For the brief, fleeting moment it had lasted, before Din had opened his eyes and watched Cobb recoil, it had been everything.
For all that he hated having been tricked like this, falling for the crude facsimile of a man who could not be replicated without all the parts that made up the whole of him, his bravery, his loyalty, his quick anger and even quicker wit, Din couldn't help but treasure the moment.
"Buii?" Grogu squirmed against his hold.
"I'm alright," Din repeated automatically. Give the lie enough voice and it might just become true.
As they approached their coordinates, Din told Grogu about the first taming of the mythosaur and reserved the part of the hero for an unnamed warrior from a far-off planet who proved himself mandokarla and saved the day. Din probably got his facts all wrong anyway so what did one more deviation matter?
Stories were important, and he would carry Cobb Vanth's with him.
Din placed Grogu's toy next to the child and rose without making a sound. Once Grogu had drifted off, he would usually sleep through the night.
One night was all Din needed.
And the kid didn't need to see this.
o
He didn't bother with being discreet this time, landed the Crest III right on the outskirts of Freetown to the welcoming of several armed townspeople, led by a dark skinned girl whose thick black hair spilled from underneath her hat. He recognized her as the one who had what felt like an eternity ago handed Cobb the remote to the explosives that had ultimately brought down the krayt.
"Jo," Din remembered.
She didn't wear the marshal's stripes with the same unflappable confidence Cobb had exuded, but she would grow into her new role. She'd had a good mentor.
"Are you here on business?" Jo asked, her young face set into a mask of determination that didn't make it all the way to toughness yet. That would come to her in time.
"No," Din assured her and everyone else present. "I am not here to cause any of you harm."
The guns lowered and then disappeared and the group disbanded, the villagers returning to whatever duties they had dropped. Jo remained, slinging her rifle over one shoulder. "Sorry 'bout that," she said, "but we had to make sure."
"I understand," Din heard himself say. It didn't feel like he was the one speaking. Everything was distant, even the light and heat. "I heard," he swallowed then tried again, "where is the marshal?"
"He was gunned down," Jo said with the straightforwardness that a harsh life in the desert had bred into these people. Not one to talk around hard truths, her. "We brought him to Daimyo Fett's bacta tank, but he passed away two days ago."
Two days ago.
The words sank heavily into the pit of his stomach. Two days ago he had left Nevarro.
"Would you do me the honour of allowing me to stay the night?" Din asked.
Jo's smile turned watery, the first crack in the facade. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind you staying, Mando."
The moniker stung in a way it never had before. Here and now was just a man who had no way to share his grief with the rest of the galaxy.
"It's Newcycle," Jo continued, slowly building up to what it was she wanted to say.
"No moons," Din recalled and for a moment memory carried him out into the desert, into a Tusken camp where Cobb was alive, telling stories by the fireside.
"That's right," Jo said, wiping a sleeve over his face. It wasn't sweat she was whisking away. Din turned his head towards the desert, granting her some small modicum of privacy.
"We're having a fire and celebrating him." If her voice was thicker than it had been before, it was between the two of them. "You are welcome to join."
"I would not wish to intrude," Din declined as politely as he could.
"You couldn't," Jo protested. "It's… good you're here. You were a friend."
If he'd been a friend, he wouldn't have asked Cobb to join a cause that would make him a target for other bounty hunters. If he'd been a friend, he would have stayed to make sure the marshal would not have to deal with the fallout on his own.
"Thank you," Din muttered and pressed a small chit into her hand. "If Freetown ever finds itself in need of aid; mine will come at no cost to you."
It had been his actions that had cost them their marshal, the man who had dedicated his life to making sure this small haven in the middle of nowhere would be free of shackles. The least he could do was look out after them.
Din didn't wait for an answer. His feet carried them on their own towards the town's outskirts. Cobb Vanth's house was the same as he remembered it except that it was decorated with flowers. Small white petals, some variety that Din vaguely recalled from his days with the Tuskens. It must have rained recently, one of those rare, barely-there drizzles that nonetheless imbued the barren desert with life for a brief period of time.
Din felt that change down to the stunted roots of his soul.
The doors opened to his touch on the control panel. Cobb had never bothered to lock up his home, safe amidst his people. It wasn't a place for people such as Din, but here he was. Here he was and what came next he couldn't tell. Hadn't thought beyond the unnamed urge to return to this place where he could let the grief wash over him.
Din let himself out onto the veranda and watched the sunset creep up. The quality of the light changed and the shadows lengthened and he felt nothing but hollow, his insides scraped out and only a husk of metal left behind.
When it was fully dark and he could be sure that no one would be able to see him, Din stripped out of his armour, deconstructed himself into someone he had until recently never wanted to be again. But he needed to not be Mando, if only for tonight.
Around him, the house was too quiet without the sound of floorboards creaking under footsteps or the noise of someone busying about in the kitchen. Din chased the memory of Grogu's giggles as he was being told a story and found it too had faded.
Later, he found a bottle with some manner of golden liquid. It burned his sinuses like fuel but he didn't pause to taste it, downed most of the contents in one go and then swayed when it hit him like a fist to the gut.
Everything blurred. Even time.
Caught in its drag, Din had returned to the veranda, hypnotized by the soft flicker of a distant fire catching the very rim of one of the nearby buildings.
Dilarium oil, Din's mind trudged up from some recess of his consciousness. Oxidated. Burns clean and doesn't smell of shit.
The light didn't reach him, didn't creep closer and intrude on his sorrow. The night was dark, not even a sliver of a moon to be seen above.
He was too late for wish-making.
"Oh, darlin'".
The suave rasp was the only warmth he'd felt in two days' time.
The alcohol merely burned.
"You're not real," Din whispered, a shiver chasing over his back and up into the fine hairs on the back of his neck. He had never heard the door open but he was probably drunk enough to miss even the blare of an alarm. Didn't have a tolerance for the booze. He shouldn't have drunk it.
"No?"
Warm hands settled on his waist, the pointed weight of a chin on his shoulder. He could feel Cobb's warmth, the wiry strength of him and leaned his weight into him.
The sound of festivities waved over on a breeze that carried them out into the desert.
"Is this farewell?" Din mumbled, slurring the words together. He was distracted by the sandpaper scratch of Cobb's beard, a sensation unlike any other. Raw and yet soft somehow.
"Yes. But not to you." Cobb's breath was a warm tickle against the shell of Din's ear.
No, to you.
Din turned his head. The tip of his nose felt cold against Cobb's burning cheek. The rest of his body followed the momentum, upper body first, then legs following behind sluggishly. Din rested his head against the crook of Cobb's neck and breathed him in, open-mouthed and aching. He smelled like the hot sands and blaster oil and clean sweat, he felt alive in all the details Din had not experienced before. A hand swept up his back, no armour to protect him from the sear of the contact. He crumbled to the rise and fall of a chest that was not his own. Pressure between his shoulder blades. Warmth and comfort.
He trembled with it.
"How much of that stuff did you drink?" softly rumbled against the crown of his head.
Too much. Not nearly enough.
Din choked around the ragged edges of a sob and then just. Let himself be. Cried into the bony angle of Cobb's shoulder; rivers, like the ones that may once, long ago, have fed Tatooine's oceans, whisked away by Cobb's thumbs. He had rough hands and yet he was gentle with them. Din was the opposite, his gloves protecting him from building up much callus but all he knew was violence.
The tears ran their course, dried up like everything else in this land. Only the pain of it remained, peaking and ebbing with every breath and shuddering exhale.
Until Cobb tilted his face up.
Din never kissed another, but he opened under the press of Cobb's lips, his tongue. Drowned himself in the love and sorrow of it and refused to resurface for that life-saving breath when his lungs demanded it.
He would hang on to this, lock it behind his ka'rta beskar and carry it with him. Treasure it, if it was all he was to have from now on.
o
In the late morning light dust motes flashed like stars trapped in the golden spill of the twin suns. The air was still but the sheets carried a scent. Din turned his face into the pillow. Breathed in, deep and slow and held on to it as long as he could.
Sickness roiled in his gut and it wasn't all the booze that he never intended to touch again. The fragmented pieces of his surroundings slowly bled into one whole picture. Cobb's bedroom was vaguely familiar although he had only spent one night here before.
Din's wrist felt tight. He lifted it into the poorly tuned field of his view, slightly crisper to his right when he didn't have his buyce's HUD correcting his vision.
Against the drab brown edge of his flight suit he saw… red.
The image dissolved and knit itself back together thread by thread into cloth. A stripe of it, wrapped around his wrist. Din ran his fingers over the fabric, its fraying edges and the neat knotwork that dug only ever so slightly into his pulse point.
He didn't remember it being there before, must have picked it up somewhere in his stupor.
He –
He needed to return to Grogu.
Din didn't know if the night had been real or a filament of his imagination or some weird thing in-between, given life by the Force or the magic innate to Tatooine.
Din left the cloth as it was. It was tied just a tad too tightly and underneath he could feel the throbbing rush of blood like a second heartbeat as he put himself back together, one piece of armor after the other, helmet last.
Din straightened the sheets and shook out the pillows and stopped in the living room on his way out.
Around him the house was quiet.
It no longer felt like a home. Just a place bereft of purpose.
The Crest was where he had left it. Grogu was bound to be up already and waiting. Din would make them breakfast and then there would be another planet, another job.
He would limp on.
The ramp lowered to the hiss of the disengaging seals.
Din stopped as if he'd run into an invisible wall.
There was a speeder in the cargo hold. A beast of an engine that took up most of the free space, front to back and in the driver's seat – a spotchka bottle emptied of liquor and now filled with sand. Din's hungover mind tried to make sense of that detail when –
"Just because I can never set foot on these sands again don't mean I can't take a piece of home with me."
Cobb was seated on one of the crates with the duffel bag that Din had forgotten was still stored away in one of his compartments lying at his feet. Grogu was sitting in his lap, animatedly babbling about something but Cobb's eyes tracked the movement of Din's helmet.
Din might as well have magnetized himself to the spot. "You were gone."
"Mhmm. Someone wished real bad for me to stay though."
He had so many questions; how and why, and have I finally taken leave of my senses?
There was only one that mattered.
"You'll stay?" Din asked. "With me?"
Cobb lowered his gaze to study Grogu who had ceased his chattering and looked up at him with all the open hope Din's helmet could never convey.
He could though.
And he did.
He let Cobb see.
Even braced on his hip the helmet always felt heavier when carried than when he was wearing it.
Cobb's eyes flicked up and held Din's.
"I told ya," Cobb said with a tilt of his head and the softest hint of laughter spilling around the edges. "Tell your name to a ghost, it can haunt you." He set Grogu down gently and stood.
Din all but ripped his glove off, and strode forward, Cobb meeting him halfway in the hold.
Din's gun hand, steady in combat, had a visible tremor.
He couldn't –
He couldn't be –
Din brushed fabric, the soft spill of it. Touched Cobb's shoulder and splayed his fingers over the other man's chest, his skin drinking in the warmth of him.
"You're solid," Din whispered like it were a secret, as if voicing it out loud might make Cobb disappear again. Beneath his palm, he could feel Cobb's steady heartbeat, the same pulse that was racing at his wrist, a matching rhythm.
The smile that came to Cobb's face was slow and more brilliant than a twin sunrise.
"And you, sweetheart, don't believe in ghosts."