𝐜𝐲𝐚𝐫𝐞'𝐬𝐞 - 𝘥𝘪𝘯 𝘥𝘫𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯

Next To You

next to you • gn!reader
It's been long enough since Din's promised return for you to assume that he didn't make it, and now you yearn for the life that could've been.

—§—

You look at the wall of scratches you've inscribed ever since the day he left you here. You count the tallies and realize that today now marks a full cycle since the day he said he'd come back. He'd promised that nothing would keep him away from you, that he'd return once everything was settled, once both your lives weren't at risk. He said he wouldn't leave you on your own, not if he could help it. You believed him. You still do.

But you know he's not coming back.

The only thing that could keep him apart from you was death. That's what you'd vowed to each other right before he left. If anyone would hold tight to a vow, it would be Din Djarin, the man who flirted with death on multiple occasions and still refused to give up on the Creed that would've made his recoveries much easier. The same man who gave up every way of life he'd known aside from his Way to save a child from the cruel clutches of a fallen Empire. The same man who promised himself to you, who captivated your heart countless cycles ago.

It's the evening, now, and you realize you've been sitting numbly within your empty cottage for countless hours. That's how most days have gone ever since you passed the day of his promised return. Life before that was manageable, as normal as it could be in his absence. You were able to keep up a job, walking into town to serve drinks at the local cantina—the same one where you first encountered your Mandalorian. On your days off, you could tend to your gardens, and even wander back into town and purchase more things for the home you would soon be sharing, collect things for your riduur to receive upon his return.

As soon as that promised day came and went, all that energy disappeared—and now you sit alone, pacing the empty house that feels nothing like a home as you try to keep yourself together.

Often, you replay the last transmission he sent you. It was just a few rotations before the day of his expected return, a holograph expressing his optimism about finally finding the child's home and telling you how excited he was to return back to you. Now, his blue image is nothing but a phantom that haunts you, his final words of "I love you" becoming a taunt that runs through your mind just as the sun rises and falls each day. No matter how many replies you make on that frequency, how many expressions of deep love and grief you show, you never get one in return. You never even get confirmation if they've gone through.

It's just silence. And that's what breaks you the most.

Din was a man of silence when you met him, but you became the one who broke him down. You eased him out of the walls of beskar he'd built not only on his body but also on his heart, helping him to rediscover who he once was and to bring that man back. You always knew it was there. Hearing his voice more and more, especially when it became bold enough to voice his truths, was the finest music to your ears. His voice, even while being modulated, was nothing short of soothing. Hearing it for the first time without the modulator just before he left was just like hearing a newly-composed symphony, and that's the voice that often haunts you along with those last words of his transmission.

Being on this pastoral planet, the one you'd both promised would be your home one day, feels more and more like a prison every day without him. You never minded it before. But, after meeting him, after experiencing the way he changed your life, you realize you don't want to be here without him. It's not the same. Nothing's the same. You're afraid that's how it'll always be, that until the day you meet the Maker and see him again, your life will be void of purpose.

Din had told you that your purpose never hinged on him, that you were destined for so much more, and you'd believed him. You know he was right—but it's a harder sentiment to agree with in his absence. It's harder to agree with after you exchanged those vows that tied you together. It's harder to agree with when you realize that you never even got to say goodbye and find closure to pursue your purpose.