x. thin lace.

( warning: mature content )

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The interior of the Razor Crest is all too familiar and overwhelmingly comforting; as soon as Zoya enters, its ambiance spreads a soft, warm blanket around her shoulders, luring a sleepy yawn from her mouth that she hadn't realized she was withholding. Din, still holding her in a type of dramatic-unconscious-maiden way that she simultaneously despises and relaxes into, carries her deeper into the ship, away from the cockpit and where the Frog Lady had gone.

            "What—" Zoya begins to say, back stiffening as she tries to sit up. However, wrapped in his arms, legs dangling feet from the ground, this proves to be rather impossible.

            "You're resting," he explains, as if it is a fact she should've known, already anticipating her confusion. His voice is gentle, but firm, ready for a protest, and though Zoya automatically feels words rising to her tongue to argue, for once she allows them to drown.

            "Okay," she mumbles, and pillows her head back against the curve of his chest. The beskar there is hard and unyielding, but despite this cold exterior, she finds that the man underneath is not.

            A surprised laugh, short and quiet, escapes his helmet. It rumbles in his chest, low and amused, and it almost feels as if his mouth is against her ear due to their proximity.

            "What?" Zoya says drowsily, fighting another yawn and the fluttering feeling that comes to life within her stomach.

            His shoulders shift slightly in what must be an attempt at a shrug. "I expected you to argue."

            "Not today."

            Din carries her to a small room typically used as crew quarters that he'd converted into a cargo hold; it's empty, save a small bed set up in the corner, blankets piled haphazardly atop the thin mattress—a mattress that Zoya remembers for its uncanny ability to feel like a piece of metal. At the sight, her head lifts, and some of the fatigue clears from her eyes. There are papers stuck to the wall, notes scrawled across their crinkled surfaces. And in the corner, a bundle of bloodstained clothes.

            "You didn't . . ." Zoya's eyes make out the pair of pants in the corner, unwearable and frayed where one of the legs is cut off. Her heartbeat's rhythm increases, and she wonders if he can feel it through his armor.

            He shakes his head, quiet. "No."

            She cannot help but ask: "Why?"

            "I hoped you would come back," Din says softly.

            Carefully, he lowers her onto the bed, hyperaware of how he arranges her left leg. He tugs one of the threadbare blankets out from beneath her and drapes it over her body, fingers light and tentative as they brush her sides, and then adds a second, lifting it from where it was crumpled on the floor. And Zoya allows him, though they are both fully aware that she's entirely capable of doing all this herself.

            Once he's laid the blankets neatly across her with quiet care, Din's slow, confident movements falter, his fingers lingering upon the knit fabric. It's clear from his hesitance that he doesn't want to leave. Her eyes find his visor, and one of her hands finds its way out from beneath the blankets.

            "Thank you," Zoya whispers. Her hand ventures forward, discovers his gloved fingers.

            "Anything," he murmurs.

            There's a long silence, punctuated only by the rustle of blankets as Zoya turns onto her side, watching him quietly. "You should go," she says, finally.

            "Should," he agrees.

            "Fly the ship, and all."

            "Mhm."

            She's smiling now, softly, (and unbeknownst to her, Din is as well) and gives his hand a little squeeze before releasing. "Go on," Zoya urges, though the softening of her dark eyes tells a different story, one of enticing roses and a blaze of scarlet flames licking across silken sheets. And Din hesitates. He hesitates longer than he should, studying that damned look in her eyes and wondering if it means what he thinks. Her smile fades slightly, but the look remains. "Din."

            "Yeah?" His voice isn't as solid as he'd hoped it would be; it betrays the relentless thumping of his heart. The heat in her gaze scorches him, but he doesn't look away. The ash falls down around them.

            Zoya's eyes trace the lines of Din's visor, is if they could penetrate its slick onyx surface to see the face beneath. Her irises become sun-colored—golden light and warmth and incandescent hope—everything that he has craved for so long. "We need to take off at some point," she says, voice lowering further to match the shadows clinging to the corners of the room, which does nothing to starve the heat that gathers beneath his ribs and hooks red-hot talons into his chest.

            (What he really wants to tell her is: If you really want me to leave, you have to stop talking to me like that, if you want me to walk away, you have to release me.) Din nods, jerkily enough that it betrays the bewildering concoction of anticipation and desire molten and churning within his heart's atriums. At the sight of the usually fluid movements from the Mandalorian suddenly awkward and unsure and rigid, Zoya's gaze darkens further, and Din fixes his eyes unsteadily upon the wall, trying to ignore the desire laid plain within her stare and how it awakens something deep within him that he's attempted to forget.

            "Right." He eases back onto his heels and stands, casting one last look over his shoulder before he disappears into the corridor, his final words echoing in the space around her: "Rest well."

            Flickering fluorescent light and the echoes of Din's fading footsteps pool in the doorway, vibrant in the dimness, but it is not enough to keep Zoya awake. Blurry, aching, a yearning in her chest, she finds the darkness waiting beneath her eyelids and succumbs.

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Zoya has become a prodigy in drowning her memories and the desires she's always held closest to her chest, but the ones that surface within her dreams have learned how to swim. Roiling waves thunder against the shores of her mind, and yet the images of Din's hands slipping across her skin do not sink; they claw to keep themselves aloft upon the top of the next surging tidal wave, emerging from the breakers unbroken with nothing but ivory foam slicking across their surfaces.

            Crest, tumble, white water.

            His lips, opening to hers. His hands, strong and sure against her back as they lower her down. His mouth, saying one thing: I want this. I want you.

            A tsunami, obliterating.

            His body, pressing down upon hers. His longing, filling her mouth.

            When Zoya wakes, the sea foams within her eyes, vibrant and unfaltering. When she rises from the bed, her thigh burns, but she does not feel it.

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The ladder in the corner leads down to the belly of the ship. Zoya climbs down it carefully, half-aware that an ache still kneads into her leg, but it's dull enough that she can't find it within herself to care, not when her pulse is racing in this way, not when every sound the creaking Razor Crest makes burns against her skin, making her wonder if it's Din moving around.

            Her boots find the floor; she turns, half-expecting to see Din checking his weapons' store, but the hold is empty. The Crest breathes quietly around her, and nothing stirs. The metal door to the small compartment in the corner is closed, so Zoya realizes that he must be sleeping.

            "Shit," she whispers, disappointed, then blinks, confused by her own disappointment. What was I going to do, anyway?

            Her nose crinkles, and she turns on her heel, about to climb back up the ladder. A stupid dream shouldn't make her feel this unsteady, this thrown off balance, but here she is nonetheless, hesitant and light-headed, unsure of everything but the fluttering within her stomach. The ship twists around her, moving like a spinning planet thrown out of orbit, and Zoya closes her eyes for a brief moment to rub at her temples—and trips.

            Her elbow smacks against the metal ladder with a as she catches herself on its rungs. "Fuck," she hisses, teeth clenching together while pain lances up her arm. She starts to haul herself up while swearing underneath her breath, elbow still twinging. "Son of a bitch, motherf—"

            She's halfway up the ladder when someone whispers, "Zoya?"

            Startled, she flinches, nearly losing her grip. A pair of hands finds her waist from below and steadies her as she glances down. "Din?"

            "What are you doing?"

            "Did I wake you?" Zoya says at the same time, focused on the press of his fingers on the arch of her hip bones.

            He shrugs.

            "I thought I was quiet."

            "Well," Din says. "I'm a light sleeper."

            Zoya lowers herself back down the ladder, trembling slightly as Din's hands slide up at her movement, brushing her ribs. He seems to notice her reaction immediately and steps back, boots silent, helmet unreadable.

            "You shouldn't be climbing around," he admonishes, keeping his voice low. "Since you've been sore."

            "I'm fine." It comes easily to her lips, a practiced response.

            Din studies her. The weight of his gaze feels like a palpable thing, a heavy, heated blanket, a whisper of a feather brushing across her cheekbone, the edge of a flame burning against her jaw, and Zoya is sure that he knows it, too.

            "What are you doing down here?" he asks again, and her mouth tightens.

            "Nothing." It's too quick, too blurted, and Din's helmet tilts to the side as he continues to watch her, a purely predatory movement that weakens the set of her shoulders and the reliability of her knees.

            "Nothing," he repeats.

            Zoya nods, fervently. Stupid, stupid stupid—

            Finally, he looks away, humming softly, as if to assure her that of course, that makes sense, and his gaze finds the smooth, low table shoved into the corner by the weapons' store. Din steps away from her, moving silently to the rickety chair beside it; his gloved index finger traces slowly across the back in a meticulous, easy movement that Zoya cannot seem to remove her eyes from. "Remember when I touched you here?" Din says, so softly that she barely hears him.

            "I couldn't forget it," Zoya murmurs, heartbeat thundering in her ears, "even if I tried."

            The soft silence that lingered between them before is pulled taut—it bites, teeth sharpened by endless months of longing and regret, unwilling to be kept cowering any longer. She moves towards him as if propelled by an unseen force, hesitating only when he's a couple feet away, still tracing the old chair that they both seem to remember all too well.

            Din turns back to her then, and, moving on feet typically so sure and confident, closes the distance between them, slowly enough that she has the chance to step away, if she wants. But Zoya stays in place, waiting.

            His hand rises, brushes the curve of her jaw, carefully enough, like she is made of glass. His glove falls to the floor; his bare palm slides against the soft skin of her neck. His thumb finds the hollow of her collarbones, and her heart beats against the pad of his finger. His voice softens further. "I kissed you here, too," he whispers.

            "I remember," she breathes; her pulse jumps against his touch.

            He takes her arm in his hand, turning it over carefully. His thumb brushes across her skin, traces the lines of her new tattoo, learning the curves and dips of the dark lines and shapes, stalls as he notices the bumps that rise up along her forearm and considers the effect he is having on her.

            "Zoya," he says softly, and his voice breaks.

            "Yeah?"

            She steels herself (though for what, she isn't sure), but nothing could prepare her for what words come from his mouth: "Can I . . . can I see your scar?" His voice is hoarse, trembling, faltering, everything she's unused to hearing from him.

            Zoya's eyes snap to his visor, and the next breath she draws into her lungs is shaky. "Yes," she says, voice rough. "On one condition."

            "What is it?" he asks, the seams of his restraint fraying.

            She takes a deep breath. "Cyar'ika. Tell me what it means." The Mando'a term falls easily off her tongue; after hours of repeating it within her head and sometimes beneath her breath aloud, the pronunciation is burned into her mind.

            He just stares at her for a moment, and she allows herself to picture the confused panic that must be tripping across his features.

            "Darling," he says finally, lips carefully forming the word, allowing it to soften the dimness of the hold. "Loosely, it means darling."

            The beginnings of a smile catch at the corner of Zoya's mouth, and she muses, "So you called me—"

            Din catches her waist and lifts her up onto the table, effectively cutting off her question. Her hands clutch his shoulders automatically, something deep in her stomach flipping as his hips lodge between her knees. "Does it mean what you thought it meant?" he asks, as her pulse heightens in tempo.

            "No," Zoya says, "I thought it meant bitch."

            Abruptly, the tension between them shatters, and Din laughs at her blunt comment, the loudest he's been since he caught her on the ladder. Grinning, she joins him, pleased with the effect her words have had. He tries to muffle his own laughter, and his bare hand covers her mouth.

            "Shh. Kid's sleeping."

            When they've composed themselves, Din lets his hand drop from her mouth. It lands on the top of her left thigh, and the silence revives itself, stealing the air from where it rests between them. Both the Mandalorian and the woman with a dagger in place of a heart watch his fingers find the pattern of the threads woven through her black pants, tracing along the top curve of her leg to the side, where the scar tissue lies knotted and gruesome beneath the fabric.

            "You don't have to show me," he blurts. "I don't know why I asked, I was just—I didn't—I mean, I saw it when you were wearing that dress, but—"

            Quietly, Zoya says, "I want to." Her voice smooths over the crack that split his voice when he mentioned that damned fiery dress. Somewhere, in a distant part of her mind where she is not losing her balance upon the edge of a cliff, Zoya feels a tremor of satisfaction.

            His voice is weak. "You do?"

            She nods, and tries, "As long as you don't ruin this pair of pants."

            The responding laugh he gives is weak, and not much more than a heavy exhale. "The other ones were already ruined," he murmurs, "from the knife."

            "Right."

            Neither appears to be breathing as her fingers find the button, the zipper, undoing everything. Her tunic is loose enough that it drapes over the apex of her thighs, concealing the trembling movements of her fingers, but Zoya feels almost completely bare as Din helps her slide the leg of her pants past the snarled scar upon her thigh. Once the fabric hits her knees, she wonders whether or not she should just take them off completely.

            Remembering her dream, the desire that boiled low in her abdomen, Zoya leans in closer to his chest to pull the pants down past her calves, and the dark material pools on the floor.

            Din's breath catches in his throat.

            "Okay," he breathes. "Okay."

            His gloved hand barely brushes against her leg as he edges his hips between her knees, but a flaming line of anticipation burns down her spine, electric and humming and trembling with unreleased energy, and her pulse kicks into overdrive, beating so plainly at the insides of her wrists and the column of her neck that Zoya knows he has to feel it.

            "Can I?" he asks, and his voice is the epitome of the sheen of ice spreading across a vast lake as it thins and fractures beneath a warming summer breeze.

            Zoya nods, heart lodged in her throat.

            His other glove hits the floor beside her discarded pants, and it's so similar to the way he'd gone down on his knees and touched her all those months ago, fingers soft and careful as they cleaned and bandaged the wound on her thigh, lingering on her skin more than they truly needed to.

            This time, there is no blood.

            This time, their bodies remember what it felt like to be pressed so close that not a thread of a breath could escape one without becoming part of the other, what it felt like to share a heartbeat, a desire.

            As his first touch skims the outer edge of the twisted scar tissue, ugly and cruel against the otherwise smooth, sleek lines of her thigh, Zoya arches towards him, almost unconsciously. A breath hisses between her teeth, so sharp that Din's head jerks upwards, and she knows his eyes scan her face beneath that fucking visor.

            "You okay?" he whispers.

            Drawing in a steadier breath, she nods shortly, bottom lip caught by ivory incisors that want to bite, nip, draw blood, paint her skin as crimson as the longing that fills every inch of her body.

            One hand rests upon the top of her leg, palm warm and broad against her skin, and wildly, Zoya thinks, on the verge of snapping, Thank the gods I shaved my fucking legs. The other slides towards the side of her thigh; his fingers trace the outside edges of the pale tissue first, slow and thorough and full of control, taking their time. The pad of his thumb finds the curls of the scar, moves so leisurely that it seems he makes a study of every inch of her skin. She trembles beneath every touch, and though she attempts to hide it, Din is completely aware.

            Zoya does not know whether or not that scares her.

            While he feels the ridges of the scar, Din's other hand slips to the side, fingers curling around her inner thigh. His grip is not gentle; his fingers leave indentations in the stretch of her soft, tanned skin, and an exhale fractures between her teeth as the muscle in her thigh jumps at his touch.

            In her mind, Zoya knows that her breathing is far too labored for the situation, but she can't seem to ease the speed of her heartbeat, which is thumping faster and faster against her ribs, a bird beating its wings upon the bars of its cage.

            "This is my fault," he whispers brokenly, fingers stalling upon her leg.

            Zoya blinks. She's sure she's misheard him. "What?"

            Din's shoulders, set in iron and doubly as strong, slump, and he shakes his head, suddenly the picture of defeat. "I'm sorry."

            He moves to pull away, to step to a place where he cannot reach her, but Zoya holds fast with her knees, and each hand finds a side of his helmet. Carefully, she tips his visor up, so she can be sure that he's looking at her.

            "Hey," Zoya says. "Don't walk away from me." It comes out quieter than she'd intended, almost like a plea, and his fingers hook about her wrists, but not to pull her away. Instead, he clings to her like she's a lifeline. "It isn't your fault." She keeps her eyes on the spot where his must be, and repeats, "It isn't your fault."

            "But I—"

            "Did you pull the trigger?"

            "No, but—"

            "Din," Zoya says, and does not miss the way his grip tightens at his name spoken aloud. "Ayaan shot me, not you."

            His posture droops further, and she understands he isn't just talking about her leg even before he says, "He wasn't the one who lied to you."

            A breath puffs out from her lips, and Zoya lowers her head. "Gods, Din." Shame coils deep in her stomach, leeching poison into her veins. "You didn't tell me because you thought it was right. You didn't want me to hurt." She pauses, mouth drying, and adds, "I was a fucking idiot for not seeing that."

            Din's hands drop, finding her waist. "You're not . . ."

            "No." Her vision blurs. "I never should have been."

            "Zoya—" he begins, and there's a question in his words.

            Before he can articulate it aloud, she pulls him forward, tucking herself close against his chest. His arms encircle her in answer almost immediately, holding her as securely as if they were falling off the edge of the world together. His modulator echoes the sound of a shaky exhale that comes from his lips; she clutches him tighter at the sound, her bare legs hooking behind his back.

            Din makes a choked sound low in his throat, and it sounds like her self-control shattering. She wonders if someone or something will come to interrupt them, split them apart, but nothing does. His hands trail down to her hips, and an inferno rages alight within her chest, flaming and searing, the birth of an iridescent star. Zoya, longing, pleading silently, allows him to pull away slightly, though his hands remain upon her, gripping her hips like someone is trying to drag him away from her.

            "When we first met again," Din murmurs then, and beneath the helmet, his eyes are free to trace the lines of her face, soft and beautiful in the darkness of the Razor Crest's hold, "you looked as if I repulsed you, like you could never think of me touching you again. But now . . ." His voice trails off, weakening, for her flustered appearance says everything for him. A flush spreads from her cheeks down to her chest, a rosy sheen that seems bright even in the dimness.

            "Din," she breathes, unable to restrain herself any longer, "I want to—"

            His thumbs find the hem of her tunic, sliding beneath. Every bit of her awareness narrows down to the places where he touches her, leaving a searing trail across her lower abdomen, the curve of her waist, the place on her hips where only thin lace separates their skin. Her hands slip from his shoulders, tumbling into her lap, but they do not linger—she reaches forward, fingers fumbling beneath the edge of his beskar, finding the buttons of his pants.

            "Can I—" she begins to whisper, feeling the need to not just tell him how she feels, how wrong she was for pushing him away, how incomprehensibly repentant she is, but to show him.

            His breath catches sharp like a blade in his throat, but he catches Zoya's hands, stopping her clumsy movements. "No," Din breathes, and this is the lowest she's heard his voice, roughened and broken open, a yearning chasm widening beneath her fingertips, and murmurs, just as her heart's atriums begin to split apart, "I want to take care of you."

            Her eyes flick up to his, widening, and he cannot help but think she looks moon-bruised: soft ivory light illuminates every bit of her carved jawline, rounded cheekbones, lips parted like the petals of a crimson rose.

            "Din—"

            "Please."

            The gasoline coalesces around their legs, and Zoya, burning up from the inside out, drops a lit match.

            She nods fervently, feeling as if she is burning up from the inside out. His hands, still beneath her shirt, find the edges of the paper-thin lace that separates her from him, and draws it away, down across the tops of her thighs. Zoya's breaths catch in her throat; a soft whimper that she cannot suffocate trembles upon her tongue as he draws away to pull the lace down over her calves, fingers lingering and soft on the skin at the backs of her knees, and edges his hips forward, parting her thighs once more.

            He has not even begun, has not yet touched her where she craves him most, and yet she trembles as if on the edge of release; the cosmos seems to be trapped beneath her skin, releasing undulating crimson and sapphire and emerald light that blisters in lustrous supernovae across the crystal perspiration already dampening her brow.

            Zoya longs to feel his lips against hers, to move her tongue against the line of his throat, but the most she can do is clutch at his shoulder as one of his hands finds her molten, burning center. A sweltering firestorm ignites within her stomach; Zoya jerks forward and bites off a sharp gasp, head falling against his chest.

            It is slow at first; Din touches her almost tentatively, unsure of how to best pleasure her, of what she likes most, but it is not long before he learns, reading the movements of her body and the soft moans that fall like petals from her mouth, the sounds like a gentle lilting melody that he's longed to hear for so long. The apples of her cheeks color with the soft pink glow of a sunrise deep into the winter months, and her eyes become glazed over as she watches him, caught in a scarlet-colored haze of lust and simmering bliss.

            And he touches her like she is the most precious, beautiful thing in the world, drunk on the heat of her skin and the pulse of her heart against the hollow of her throat as she spirals into saccharine oblivion, a sonorous echo of the song resonating through his own veins. Power shudders headily through her body, and distantly, he realizes that it is not purely pleasure that seems to make her lift off the table, but it is a far-off reflection, blurry and indiscernible beneath the details of the earthquake forming within her eyes.

            As a cry bursts from Zoya's mouth that seems to echo off the walls, Din leans forward as if to muffle her moans with his lips, but his helmet bumps against her forehead, forgotten in his stupor. They share a breathless laugh, unbridled happiness and ecstasy jumbled arbitrarily at being together at last, despite the armor that seems like an illusion between them.

            The smile melts upon her tongue as his fingers convey the words that he still withholds from his lips; burning with star-fire, they etch the words inside her, a permanent brand that sizzles as the galaxy ruptures within her: I love you, I love you, I love you.

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a/n: literally 4.5k words of dinzoya 🥴 made y'all wait SO long!!!!! hopefully it was worth it ;)

also grogu (pictured below) canonically goes deaf in his sleep for this chapter so do not worry ❤️