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The Mandalorian doesn't speak to you.
He never has.
He watches you work without ever once coming up to the bar. He conducts his work with Karga, leaves shortly after with every single pair of eyes in the cantina on him. You can’t tell if he doesn’t notice behind all that armour and beskar, or if he doesn’t care.
Then he’s gone for days again. Sometimes weeks, months. Sometimes it's a long time before you see him again and you think you’ve forgotten how shiny that helmet is. But then you’ll see something glimmer in the corner of your eye and in comes the most feared bounty hunter.
The Mandalorian watches you.
So much so that Karga and the people who conglomerate at his preferred table tease the Mandalorian for it. Just go up there, order a drink, say something!
It’s not that easy, Mando thinks. But he doesn’t entertain them. They’ll never let it go if he engages in this conversation so he bottles it up, swallows it whole and one day he’ll die with it deep inside his chest and no one will ever know.
But it’s never that easy either.
The people in Nevaro are anything but sweet, and eventually the Mandalorian notices how the patrons of the cantina bother you. He watches how the entitled ones saunter up to you, bother you with too many questions, too many touches which you recoil from, all of them unwanted. He watches how they don’t get the message and it angers him. Which it really shouldn’t; he’s never fucking spoken to you and you can clearly handle yourself.
He’s taken note of the dagger which you holster in your belt, as well as the one lodged against your ankle, tucked away inside your boot. They’re well hidden, but not from Mando.
Point is, you don’t need his help. You never indicated that you needed or sought protection from anyone other than yourself. He’s seen you throw a punch, he’s seen you threaten, promising a good fight they won’t win. He’s seen you handle yourself.
Which is why this is all the more confusing for him.
He’s started…. Escorting you home….. From a distance. He thinks you don’t notice him, how he’s always a few steps behind you, lost in the crowd with his visor tracked on you.
He’s convinced himself he’s doing it for you, for your protection, for your safety, because he ultimately feels something for you that he can't even fully admit to himself yet but actually.
He’s just as selfish as all those other scumbag patrons that you have to deal with at the cantina.
He’s selfish when he stays till the end of your shift, when he makes sure you see him placing those extra credits for you on the table he was sitting at, when he lets you walk out before him and stays close while you lock up the cantina and then pretends to walk in the opposite direction.
He thinks you don’t notice him, the most feared and prestigious bounty hunter. But you do. That glimmer.
You round the corner, close to home but you press yourself tight up against the wall. Waiting .
And he sees it - obviously - your sudden movements, the sway of your hips as you send yourself around a corner you don’t usually turn on. He plays it cool and keeps walking straight ahead except you’re grabbing his cowl and sending him crashing against the wall you had been pressed against - dagger to his neck.
“You’re too shiny for your own good.” You seethe at him and Mando has to stop himself from laughing.
It’s strange to see such a furious, almost dangerous expression on a face with such kind eyes, soft - pretty features.
“Why are you following me?” You ask, pressing further into his cowl with your dagger, cutting through the thick material. He raises his hands slowly in surrender, friendly .
And you know he is. You know he is because you’ve watched him the way he watches you.
He leaves you extra credits when Karga doesn’t, he stacks the cups everyone’s used to reduce the mess you need to clean up at the end of the day. He’s polite, quiet. He’s never done anything to prove himself a threat. But you can’t help it, not in some place like this, like Nevaro.
“Why have you been following me?” You ask gentler this time, lowering the dagger and slowly putting it back on your belt.
You’re a bit embarrassed, you’re not sure why you nearly attacked him like that, you knew it was him, you know he wouldn’t hurt you like that but that little voice in the back of your head didn’t let you grow up like that, didn’t let you grow up trusting, naive, dumb . You grew up defending, attacking, protecting. Nevaro might breed cowards but it also breeds fighters.
The Mandalorian still doesn’t respond and you huff, frustrated that he still won’t engage with you. He’s nothing but an armoured wall to you, you couldn’t possibly know of the fucking tsunami going on inside his head right now.
How you shine underneath the moonlight, how it lights up your skin all these new colours with the neon lights off in the distance, your eyes, your nose, your lips. He’s never seen you this up close, not in the cantina, not outside in the real world. The feared Mandalorian is rendered speechless.
You back away from him, deciding to let the fight in you die and go on your way home. If he follows, he follows. But you know the Mandalorian won’t hurt you.
//
He doesn’t walk ten feet behind you anymore.
The Mandalorian has started walking beside you now, keeping up with your pace, however leisurely or rushed - depending on the day.
People stare at him, at the both of you now, when you walk through the night time streets of Nevaro. What’s the bounty hunter doing walking so casually with someone like you? Were you just as dangerous as him? You liked the edge it gave you, that’s what you told yourself.
When he sees your building complex in sight, sometimes he’ll tap your arm and head off, knowing you’re good to make it the last few steps and not wanting to hover like an overbearing parent.
Is that what this is? The need to protect something other than himself?
In his line of work, violence and danger are guaranteed. He can’t control his situation but maybe he can yours. If he can make sure you stay out of danger, that’s good enough for him. But why?
You know why, he’s quick to suppress those thoughts, those bubbling warm and hot feelings he gets when you’re around. It’s easier when you’re not there, when he’s back on the Crest, alone. It’s easier to not think about you. But when you’re right there… he can’t help himself. Can’t help but let those thoughts bubble to the surface like lava.
Whether Mando stays at the cantina until closing, or if he swings back around - after stopping at the shop for parts or the covert - he’s always there. He has been everyday for the last week now. And he’s here tonight.
He watches you work from where he stands, leaned cooly against the entrance with his feet crossed and his hands resting over his stomach.
He watches the way your eyebrows knit together in concentration, trying to scrub the counter clean of whatever substance is clearly caked on. He watches you shine the glasses, put everything away neatly. He notices how tired you look, the way your shoulders sag and bags underneath your eyes - they still shine so bright, even in the low light of the cantina.
“Here.” You toss him something he’s not expecting yet he catches it with ease.
A meiloorun fruit.
You give him such an easy smile - like it really is that easy - as you lock up the cantina and begin on your way home.
He stares at the fruit as you walk side by side, the colours remind him of a sunset.
You both know he can’t take off the helmet and enjoy it now, in the dark of the night. You both know he’ll savour it slowly when he’s back on the Crest, alone and tired. He’ll let it drip down his fingers, down his hands and forearms and think of you.
If he could eat it now he’d share some with you, he’d watch you bite around the skin he just bit into as well and watch the juices drip into your mouth, like they do into his. Maybe he’d kiss you and you’d share the juice together. He wonders if you’d let him kiss you -
“I know you can’t eat it now but, I just noticed that you didn’t eat anything at the cantina today so I thought you might be hungry.” You shrug, kicking some rocks with your boot and watching them roll further away. Anything to distract yourself from looking at him.
Mando is easily flustered, but no one would guess it from just looking at him. His cheeks burn underneath the beskar helmet, eyes wide.
You had seen the fruit lying around the back of the cantina, stole it all for him. Because you thought he might be hungry. His heart palpitates hard, like he’s sprinting after a quarry, it nearly knocks him off his feet.
“Thank you.” His voice comes out rough, harsh. Like he’s not used to saying those two words. He’s not.
You look at him and smile back. At least, you think he’s smiling under there. You wonder what his smile looks like. You hope he can’t tell how flustered you are. That modulator in his helmet must automatically lower his voice or something, it rumbles through your belly and lights something on fire.
You two continue to walk in silence, so close your arms nearly graze. You notice how softly he grips the fruit, how small it looks in his leather gloved hands. You’d be lying if you said you never thought of those hands, those gloves, that old and worn leather - touching you.
You shiver and you blame it on the cool desert night.
“You know I can handle myself, right?” You ask, fidgeting with your hands and avoiding the intimidating T-shaped visor.
That question had been burning a hole in your tongue for the past week, you’d been dying to know why he started doing this, why he took it upon himself to walk you home every single night.
The Mandalorian stays silent. You take his silence as doubt.
“I was perfectly fine before you came along.” You spit, rolling your eyes and crossing your arms over your chest. He likes how easy you are to light up, little spitfire .
“I know.” He answers cooly, breathy, like he’s chuckling - at least you think it’s chuckling, you’ve never heard him make that sort of sound before.
You huff, unamused. Mando looks at you then, watches you walk with your head held high and looking straight ahead, watching as your small complex comes into view.
The moonlight lights you up like that first night you had confronted him. The Mandalorian remembers how truly dangerous you had seemed - even to him. If you were anyone else he would have raised his blaster and fought back.
The blue light of the moon cools you, makes you seem… chill . Relaxed even. He wants to touch your face.
“You’re very capable.” He adds, as he thinks of you - you with fire in your eyes.
His words nearly startled you, you weren’t expecting anything else, much less a… compliment from the Mandalorian. You suppose that means a lot coming from him. He watches your eyes widen, how they turn to meet his, already looking.
That startles him, knocks the breath out of his lungs and he nearly keels over from the blow. Somehow you got him, dead center, straight on. Your eyes pierce his and he feels like he’s been shot. He feels like you can see him and he’s scared for the first time in a long time.
The Mandalorian is scared.
And you smile, teeth sparkling like a predator and you say, “I am.”
You are.
When you reach your door, you fidget with the keys. He thinks you’ll drop them but you don’t.
The door creaks open into your small hut, smaller than he had imagined for some reason. This is the closest he’s ever gotten, the most he’s ever seen of this other side of you; where you are when you aren’t at work, when you’re not around him.
He watches the light disappear from your face as you step inside the dark cavern. You don’t close the door behind you. You stand on the other side of the precipice, watching him in the dark like an animal waiting to pounce. His heart races.
He lingers in the doorway, waiting for something - admission, confirmation, permission. Anything.
You take his hand in yours and tug him through the doorway. He lets you.