Chapter Text
Somewhere in the dark, a twig snaps, and Grogu goes still.
His ears prick. He keeps his head facing forward, staring at the crackling campfire — the visor of his helmet automatically adjusting to the brightness to shield his eyes. That means, however, that the dark of the shadows are even darker than how they would be usually, coiling between the gaps of the growth of the forest like a beast kept away by the light, lying in perfect, still, wait.
Grogu cautiously reaches out through the Force, testing the waters and tasting the Songs.
He relaxes.
"Vars?"
A pause. Then, Vars steps out from the dark. His Song is beating with some minor annoyance, and a bit of disappointment. "Damn," Vars sighs, his shoulders slumping. "How'd you guess?"
"I heard you."
"But how'd you guess me?"
"I recognized you," says Grogu. I'd recognize you anywhere, he does not.
Vars was wearing his helmet. Grogu managed to get the clear impression, however, that the Young Goran was pulling a face at him. Grogu pulled a face back, equally hidden by his own visor.
"I ever tell you how unfair it is that you get to use the Force?"
"Just about every time we spar, yeah." Grogu leans back, propping up his weight with one hand. The other, he cradles a bowl of meat stew in his lap. He says, seriously, a question despite the way that it sounds, "You're jealous."
"Absolutely." Vars plops down next to him, his Song exposing how unserious he was — an answer to Grogu’s not-quite question; no, not really.
Before Grogu could think to be relieved, Vars immediately leans over and steals the stew off Grogu's lap. With a soft hiss of air, Vars' helmet comes off and is set down on the ground next to him.
Grogu frowns at him, as he digs in. "Hey."
"What? 'M hungry." With his mouth full, Vars waves the spoon at him. "And you didn't look like you were eating."
Grogu's now empty hand twitches, and curls into a loose fist. He glances away.
He frowns. “How did you find me?”
Vars doesn’t answer immediately. When Grogu drags his reluctant gaze over to look at him, however, he sees the Young Goran with an unsuccessfully stifled smile. Vars glances sideways at him, through the corner of his eye, and his smile grows wider.
In a low, almost conspiratory voice, Vars says, “I tracked ya.”
Grogu blinks. His eyes grow wide. “…You tracked me?”
“I tracked you!”
“Vars!” Grogu can’t help but slightly lean forward. He’s grinning. “Really?”
“Really!” Vars wriggles a bit, in place, out of his sheer excitement. He’s obviously preening — visibly proud of himself. “Wasn’t hard.”
Grogu pulls a face.
“Was a little hard,” Vars amends, as if he could see. At the very least, he must’ve been able to feel it. “…Okay, fine. It was hard hard.”
Grogu chuckles, softly. “’S kinda the point.”
“Still. Ugh.” Dramatically, oh-so-terribly-inconvenienced, Vars throws a free hand over his eyes. “Felt like I was tracking myself at times.”
Grogu gives in to the urge to lean over, knocking his fist against Vars’ arm. “You found me eventually.”
For a moment, his brother…stops. And sorta just stares at him, for a while, through the gaps of his fingers. “Yeah,” Vars says, his voice just a smidge quieter than before. He slowly brings his hand down. “I did.”
He then adds, at a more normal volume, “No thanks to you.”
Grogu shifts his hand — from a fist, to firmly grasping his brother’s arm. “Vars Prente,” he says, very seriously. “If you could track me, you can track anybody.”
“Grogu Djarin,” Vars returns, considerably less serious, but trying his best to mimic Grogu’s tone, “that may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Grogu harrumphs. He pulls his arm back. “Hey. I say nice things to you all the time.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like how if you could track me, than you could track-“
Vars whacks the top of Grogu’s helmet with his spoon — clang!
“Ow!” Grogu rubs at the top of his buy’ce (helmet). He’s scowling. "What's that for?"
"You're the worst brother."
"You just whacked me with a spoon- My spoon, too!"
"And I'll do it again." Vars waves the spoon threateningly in his direction, and Grogu does not doubt him.
He doesn't for anything, really. Least of all this.
"And I'm the bad brother-"
"What was that?"
"Nothing," says Grogu, quickly, innocently.
"Hmph." Vars breaks into a wide grin. He takes another spoonful of the stew, brows raising in tease and triumph. Grogu scoffs and waves him off.
They fall into an...easy, comfortable silence. A silence that Grogu rarely gets without consequence, now that he's thinking about it — the presence resting against him, grounding but not overbearing, weighty but not burdening. Just there, and yet-
And yet.
As the silence stretches, Grogu tenses, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Soon enough;
"So," Vars begins, trying his best to act casual — a feat well-done, on the track to being successful, had Grogu not have the Force Songs rumbling in his ears. "Any reason why you're out here and not, y'know, back at the base?"
Grogu bites on his lip, then gnaws at the inside. "It's 'the base' now?"
"It's a base and you know what I mean." Vars glances at him through the corner of his eye. There is something thin in that gaze, and Grogu is dipping his chin down in an apology before he even realises it. It takes a moment, before Vars' gaze softens, and he dips his own chin down to accept Grogu's unspoken 'I'm sorry'.
"Caine got back. You could imagine my reaction when you weren't with him."
Grogu pulls a face at the mere mention of Mayfeld, but there's something else about Vars' tone that nags at him — soft and solemn, with a gravelly undercurrent of a something that teeters at the precipice of a cliff, dancing around its edge.
It's unnerving.
"What'd he say?" Grogu asks, carefully keeping his emotion out of his tone — it falls very flat as a result.
"That you were being a shabuir. (Asshole)"
Grogu grunts.
"And," Vars adds, "that you went off to hunt your bounty on your own."
There it is again — that gravelly undertone, that pirouetting emotion, risking it all.
"Sure," Grogu says, very carefully. He plays close attention to the Songs, the gears in his head churning as he tries to figure out why Vars sounds like that. "I had a job to do."
Vars is quiet. It's a pause that grates at Grogu's nerves, clawing the edges to ribbons, shrill and spine-chilling, and he bites on the inside of his lip hard enough until he starts to taste copper.
Then, just when he was about to blurt out and snap and just ask him what was going on, Vars goes;
"I didn't think I'd find you."
…Oh.
Grogu turns his head to his brother. His eyes, underneath his helmet, are wide. He swallows. "Vars," says he, breathing out in a quiet whisper. "I wouldn't-"
Vars turns his head, meeting his gaze. "Wouldn't you?"
"No! I'd never-" Grogu shifts, twisting around to face Vars proper. He says, again, and though it is the truth, it sounds weak to his own ears, "I- I had a job to do."
There is a name, now, to that unspoken, gravelly, teetering on the cliff's edge, emotion that he was hearing earlier, and its mirror is there in Vars' eyes — his brother looks at him, a mixture of sad and terrified.
"It was just a bounty," Grogu tries to say, soothing platitudes.
"I didn't think the bounty would kill you," Vars replies, quietly, as if those words weren't a blade that stabbed straight through the beskar. His eyes pinch, and his brow furrows, staring at him like he was a living problem, a piece of porcelain that broke and shattered in his arms.
Vars blinks, and barks out a sudden laugh — dry and humourless and brittle. He glances away. "Haar'chak (damn it), I sound like-"
He cuts himself off. Slowly, he shakes his head, heaving a sigh heavy enough to shift his shoulders. "Can you blame me?" Vars asks the forest floor, quiet, as if he was suddenly shy, "I thought you were dead already, once."
Something in Grogu's ribcage, something beneath the beskar and bone, crumples to pieces.
He should apologise.
He should. He should duck his head and tear the words out from where they are tucked, closely, caught in his larynx, spitting them out; I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you, I didn’t mean to make you afraid, I didn’t mean to make you lose me again for however briefly, I’m sorry, so sorry, so so so sorry.
There is a lot, that Grogu should apologise for. Not just for now, not just for these past couple days. He has months worth of a debt to pay and, here, sitting around this campfire, the moon shrouded by a canopy of leaves overhead — he should just get it done and over with. They’ll only ever pile up.
He draws his hands to his lap and says nothing.
For a long while, seconds to minutes ticking by, there is only the sound of the crackling campfire flame and the barely-there rustling of the leaves from a barely-there gust of wind. There is only the barely-there, barely-audible twin pairs of breathing; the barely-there, barely-audible beating of their hearts.
There is also the Force, of course. But ever since Grogu told it off for leading him to Migs Mayfeld— or was it Mayfeld, who’d been led to him? — it’d been ever so slightly stiff and put-off, as if it were annoyed with him, or something.
If the Force were a person, he’d be worried about having irritated it enough for it to leave him, alone. Luckily they’re stuck together, for better or for worse.
(Grogu knows it would ache, just like he does, if they were ever kept apart. He knows because he’s felt it — mirroring wounds, his and those Melodies.)
Vars clears his throat. “So,” he says, and Grogu’s punishment for not saying anything is the way his voice is stiff and a bit hoarse all at once, “wanna tell me why you’re here?”
Grogu tightly swallows. He stares at his hands. Idly, he presses the talon points of two opposite fingers together.
“Caine and I had an argument,” Grogu manages at last; coughing out like an organ, bloodied and beating, still.
“…he mentioned that,” Vars says, and Grogu’s stomach constricts painfully when he realises Vars won’t just accept that and move on. Damn it. “’Bout what?”
Grogu shuts his eyes. He takes in a breath, and it shudders and rumbles clumsily into his lungs.
“Uh-“ Grogu clears his throat. He opens his eyes. He clears his throat again. “We, uh-“
Vars is staring at him. A whistling wind swerving through tree trunks and to their little campfire makes strands of the fur lining his shoulders sway, like blades of grass on a field. His chest rises and falls with every gentle breath.
Grogu stares at all of that, instead of trying to answer.
He blurts, “Caine knew my dad back when he was alive.”
Vars blinks.
“He what?”
“He knew him,” says Grogu, again, and tacks on a soundless prayer at the end that he won’t have to say it a third time — it didn’t get easier, it only felt like it was getting harder if anything. “I didn’t know. Neither of us knew, up until that hunt.”
Vars turns around to face him. His eyes are wide — shocked, surprised, taken-aback. Grogu cringes away from those notes in the Force as if they were tongues of raging fire.
“Well that’s- that’s great!” Vars blinks. He reevaluates. He gazes at Grogu, pieces probably clicking to place in his head. “Isn’t it…great?”
Grogu glances away. He stares at the fire. For a moment, he loathes the self-adjusting brightness of his visor, wishing he could stare at the bright glare of the flame and have the fire bite back — wishing it’d feel like something, mean something, hurt like something.
He’d reach out and stick his hand into the flames, if he weren’t terrified of the very notion. Something about fire…makes him uneasy.
Eventually, Vars must realise that Grogu wasn’t — wouldn’t, couldn’t, didn’t want to — answer his question. He sighs, softly.
“…how was the hunt?” He asks, instead. A safer question.
“Good,” Grogu replies. “Got it done.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Grogu reaches for his belt, unhooking his credit pouch and chucking it to Vars — who just barely reacts quickly enough to keep it from plopping into his stew. “Gonna have to do another one soon, but that should hold for a couple days.”
Vars hefts the pouch in his hand, as if testing the weight. He whistles. “Damn. Long enough for us to get out of here then?”
Grogu blinks. He cocks his head. “You don’t like it here?”
“I do.” Vars chucks the credits back to him. “You don’t, though.”
Grogu catches the pouch as it collides with his cuirass, and then keeps it there for a moment — as if the patchy fabric and chinking credits inside would act as an extra barrier for his heart that aches, suddenly.
“I don’t hate it here,” he says, as if he’s trying to defend himself.
Vars pulls a face. “Sure.”
“I’m serious.” Grogu hooks the pouch back on his belt. “I’m neutral about it. The planet’s fine.”
“You know I’m not talking about the planet.”
“Fine. The base is fine.”
“Really?” Vars sounds as if he’s, quite frankly, full of Grogu’s shit. “So we could go back right now?”
Grogu is quiet. “…you can.”
“I said we.”
Damn it.
“Thought so.” Vars doesn’t even sound smug about it — he just sounds tired. Any smugness is a more worn, fraying version of it. “What do we do about Caine?”
We?
“I’m not gonna avoid him,” he huffs. “’M not a coward.”
“…I never said you were,” Vars says, very carefully. He heaves a sigh. “You know, he does care about you.”
Grogu cannot help himself — he scoffs, loudly. “Right.”
“I’m serious. Would I lie to you?” Vars doesn’t wait for an answer; Grogu wasn’t about to give him one. “He told me to go after you. I’d have done it anyway but…he was worried about you, Grogs.”
Grogu curls one of his fingers to a tight fist. “Then he’s an idiot for it.”
To his credit, Vars doesn’t get upset by that — if you can call the humourless, barked out laugh he does just then ‘not upset’. “Everyone’s an idiot to you.”
This time, Grogu finds his courage — he finds his voice. “Not you,” he says. “Never you.”
He doesn’t look, to see whatever expression Vars may have. Neither is he going to much acknowledge or think about or even listen to the way he Sings.
He keeps his gaze glued to the fire.
“Grogu Djarin,” Vars says, and his voice is soft, and his tones are warm, and like a coward Grogu leans into it, selfishly breathing it in, “that may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Grogu breathes out — soft, sweet, soundless breath of air.
“You’re just saying things now,” says Grogu, biting hard on the urge to tremble with relief. He cocks his head, tilts it just so that he’d be able to see his brother, and he smiles. “Just for the sake of saying things.”
“Just realised did you? Did we just meet or something?” Vars fires back with his own grin. He delivers a too-soft blow to Grogu’s shoulder, before carrying the motion to grab his spoon and take another bite of the stew. “Mm-“ says Vars, muffled by his chewing, “this ‘s real good by the way. What meat is this?”
“Venison.”
“Huh?”
“Deer,” Grogu says, quietly.
“Oh.” Vars takes another bite. “Cool. Can I…?”
Grogu waves him off to let him finish the bowl. Vars had been right, earlier. He doesn’t have the appetite.
For the next couple days, Grogu Djarin does not avoid Migs Mayfeld.
…okay, fine, that’s a lie.
For the next couple days, Grogu Djarin does a lot of things, but avoid Migs Mayfeld most of all. Sure, he may have left his impromptu campsite, kicking dirt over the campfire to put it out and doing it again and again and again and again until he was absolutely sure that there was no possibility of a forest fire, and then doing it again until Vars had to forcibly yank him away by the cloak. Sure, Grogu might’ve returned to the Crest II, which — he says to Vars, on multiple occasions — was technically in the base clearing, so Grogu was technically in the base, Vars, it counts-
Vars, to his credit, doesn’t push at him as much as he certainly has the right to.
Vars, to his credit, slips seamlessly into the role of mediator, middle ground, messenger, filling in the empty space and leaving him to his distance, so much so that Grogu hadn’t the chance to ask and hadn’t the chance to even say thank you.
He likes to think he would’ve said it — thank you, to his brother. He’s sure he would’ve, had he only the opportunity, a chance to say it and not make it…weird.
He’s just waiting for the right time.
He’s sure there’s gonna be a right time, eventually.
Until then, Vars ferries credits to the Sharpshooter's crew and weapons back to the Crest II until they manage to piece together a meager arsenal — nothing like what Grogu remembers of Buir's, but it wouldn't be the first time Grogu's failed to live up to his father's legacy.
...ouch. He does these things to himself, and they hurt, but always he ends up doing them again anyway. Weird how that is.
Not that Grogu thinks about it, whilst he stays on the ship and organises and reorganises blasters and blast charges — Grogu doesn't think about it at all, and certainly doesn't think about Migs Mayfeld.
Now, Mayfeld, to his credit, doesn’t storm into the Crest II and demand to see him — doesn’t slam his fist on the hull and yell for them to finish their fight from earlier either by use of words or fists. Mayfeld, to his credit, almost feels like he’s avoiding Grogu just as much as the vice versa.
And that works out just nicely, doesn’t it? Grogu gets to stay around his ship and fix it up, Mayfeld gets to…do whatever he does, and Vars gets to flit in between them as he likes. How quaint. How…great.
It’s great.
Because Grogu does not spend many minutes staring across the distance of the clearing. He does not seek out Mayfeld’s silhouette. He does not wonder, does not think about, does not care, that maybe-
Maybe Mayfeld knows something.
About Buir.
Something that Grogu doesn’t. Something that Grogu had forgotten, maybe Mayfeld still remembers. Maybe if Grogu goes to him, asks him, then together they’d be able to piece together more a picture of a man Grogu mostly knew as dead.
Maybe Mayfeld knew his dad better than Grogu had the chance to.
But, like, that never occurs to Grogu, because Grogu never thinks about it, so he doesn’t cross that damning distance and swallow his pride and deal with the agony and burning shame of the reminder that is helmet may have belonged to his father, once, but it still wasn’t him.
That Grogu might’ve belonged to a father, once, but that didn’t make him Buir, or any closer to him, no matter how much he thinks it does or hopes it does or needs it to.
That he is a child dressing up as the warrior that loved him once, but never really got to know.
That an outsider, someone who was an enemy for a longer time than he was an ally, might’ve known Din Djarin better than his own son does. That Migs Mayfeld would succeed in something that Grogu Djarin had not.
Grogu doesn’t think about any of that. It never crosses his mind.
On the day that they are about to leave, Grogu bites down on his tongue and forces himself to trudge across that damning distance. Every step sinks heavily, weighing him down, as if the planet itself tries to hold him back, to try and convince him to turn around with every move he makes to get closer.
But the grass parts easily, and there is nothing concrete that’s actually holding him back. Grogu keeps going forward.
As he does, he spies the silhouettes of his brother amidst the rest of Mayfeld’s crew. Vars is waving his hand around in the way that he always does when he’s swept in the conversation, and from what Grogu can hear, everyone’s Song is attentive and present and at ease. It isn’t at all a far stretch to say that they all like him.
For a second, Grogu feels...envious. That Vars would know them for a shorter time than Grogu had, and already be closer.
The feeling fades. Grogu is left with the quiet question of why it ever even mattered. It’s not like he cared.
He doesn’t.
Mayfeld is standing off to the side, hands braced flat against the table, the main centrepiece of the base. He looks like he’s poring over some map of some kind, simultaneously listening in to some comms he probably tapped into. When Grogu approaches, the Sharpshooter looks up, looks down, does a double-take and then looks up again.
Mayfeld sets the comms down and straightens up.
Something in Grogu tenses, braces, like he’s about to go into battle.
A distance away, he stops. Grogu waits, expecting Mayfeld to break the silence first, as he always usually does.
Mayfeld does not.
Grogu waits.
Mayfeld, still, does not break the silence. The Sharpshooter crosses his arms, cocking a single questioning brow down at Grogu. There is a peculiar bit of steel in Mayfeld’s Song —something of stubborn defiance.
Grogu waits.
Eventually, unmoving Mandalorian visor wins, wearing down that stubborn defiance like waves lapping upon a seashore. Mayfeld’s eye twitches, and he squints, before he sighs.
“Mando.”
Grogu slowly tilts his head. Behind the visor, he pulls a face. “Hm.”
Mayfeld’s brow furrows. He squints at Grogu, his expression slowly shifting until it looks like he’s not sure what it is that he’s looking at, or at least doesn’t believe what he’s looking at. “…’hm’? That’s it?”
Grogu feels a smile, bitter and rotten, twist at the corner of his expression. He says, still, nothing.
Soon enough, Mayfeld’s eyes are narrowed to slits. He uncrosses his arms and then re-crosses them. He huffs, and then harrumphs, and then hisses, “You’re unbelievable.”
“Am I.” Grogu’s voice falls flat. He can’t help it — he cocks his head. “I thought I was being very clear about…everything?”
“Tch-“ Mayfeld scoffs at him. He bows his head, drawing in a breath as if it’ll help him soothe those bristling notes of his Song. “Kark,” breathes Mayfeld, and shakes his head. “Can’t believe I thought you’d apologise or- or something.”
“Or something,” Grogu confirms. “Need the name, Caine.”
"The n- Are you serious?"
Grogu doesn't grace that with an answer.
“So that’s it?” Mayfeld stares at him. He scoffs, disbelieving. “You’re just going back to the gutter?”
“It’s a hunt. I’ve wasted-“ Grogu stops himself. He bites his tongue. “...The name, Caine.”
For a long time, seconds ticking by uncomfortably, Mayfeld only continues to stare at him. This silence isn’t like the one from earlier—Grogu doesn’t get the impression that the Sharpshooter was waiting, willing, for him to back down and say something first. This silence-
It’s different.
Not necessarily in any good way.
Bit by bit, Mayfeld’s irritated melody turns into something more sombre; bit by bit, his eyes do not soften as much as his gaze deepens, his barely-there sneer turning to a quiet frown.
It is not unlike the way Grogu’s brother had stared at him, a couple days ago, by the campfire.
Just like then, Grogu soundlessly bristles against it.
“Your old man-“ Mayfeld begins.
“Do not start,” Grogu snaps, hissing the words out as if they were venom and his teeth were dripping with them.
“Well it needs to be said, alright?”
“From you?” Grogu scoffs. His shoulders are tense; Grogu shifts his feet, sneering, “There is nothing I’d want to hear about him, from you.”
“’Course there isn’t,” Mayfeld grits out. He keeps his arms crossed, this time, and it strikes him how absurdly obvious it is that Mayfeld’s keeping at the gesture for the excuse of holding himself, more than anything — a child curling into themselves to hide from the monster underneath their bed.
Soundless, Grogu bares his teeth —monster, enraged.
“But just ‘cause you don’t want it,” Mayfeld continues, and in a sense, it’s brave of him — foolish, but brave, “doesn’t make it any less important to hear.”
If Grogu had been paying more attention, he might’ve noticed the way every other Song in the clearing shifts their focal points to them. If Grogu had been listening, hadn’t been drowning against the roaring rush of blood in his ears, tsunami of emotion, he would’ve perhaps realised the number of eyes he’s got boring into his back.
As it was, Grogu does not notice. Grogu doesn’t notice much of anything other than the gall of this shabuir to try and tell him what his father would’ve wanted, would’ve asked for, would’ve liked. How dare Mayfeld had been to do this, to dangle such atrocious truth in front of his face like some rotten piece of meat, flinging flies and sickly dark decay.
He’d thought that it’d be shame that he’d feel, when the inevitability of the truth kicks in.
It’s mainly just rage now.
“Just give me the name, Caine.”
Mayfeld shifts his feet, taking half-a-step back. Force or no Force, the sudden spike in the Sharpshooter’s fear reeks in the air. Still, though, with that damning, stubborn bravery, Mayfeld lifts up a finger. “Are you gonna let me say my piece?”
“No,” Grogu seethes.
“Well kark off, I’m saying it anyway.”
“Caine-!”
“You think he would’ve wanted this for you?!” Mayfeld throws his arms up into the air. He shifts his feet, pacing in place for a moment, before curling his fingers to fists.
There is nothing about his expression that is important to note. Grogu does not pay it any attention.
“Do you honestly, sincerely,” for a second, Mayfeld’s voice cracks underneath the weight of all his damnedly earnest emotion, “that he would be happy-“
“What he would’ve wanted doesn’t FUCKING matter now, does it?!” Grogu crosses the distance in a flash. He’s leapt up the table, kicking and scattering maps and datapads and styluses. “Shut up. Shut up now before I make you.”
There is nothing about the way Mayfeld looks at him that is important to note. Grogu does not pay it any attention.
“Kid-“
“Do not ‘kid’ me, Mike Caine,” Grogu shoves his helmet close to the Sharpshooter’s face. His fury is blinding. “Give me the name.”
Mayfeld leans back. Quick like vice and with all the venom of one, Grogu reaches out and grabs the Sharpshooter's shirt, claws tearing little holes through the threads. Mayfeld's rapid heartbeat is the symphony accompaniment to the serving smell of his instinctive panic.
Grogu can see the reflection of a beast, fury incarnate, wearing silver beskar helmet, staring back at him from the depths of Mayfeld's eyes.
There is nothing important about the way Mayfeld looks at him.
Grogu does not-
Cannot-
Won’t-
Pay it any attention.
The knock rings hollow through the cockpit.
“Grogs?” Vars waits, a second, before delicately adding, “Busy, or can I come in?”
For a second, the only thing that replies is the sound of buttons being pressed, gentle beeping, and the occasionally scrape of claws against metal.
“It’s not like it’s my room,” Grogu says at last. He keeps his gaze on the screens and the transparisteel —beyond, to space stretching endlessly. “What’s up?”
Vars’ footsteps thud against the floor, muffled by his boots in the way a heartbeat is muffled by muscle and bone. Very slightly, Grogu feels what must be his brother resting his arms on the top of the pilot’s seat, if only based off the way it subtly moves.
“Helmet still on?” Vars asks.
Grogu purses his lips together. “Didn’t get the chance to take it off.”
“...Can I?”
Grogu pauses. He gnaws on the flesh of the inside of his lip —turned tender and raw with how often he sinks his teeth into it. Eventually, he nods.
Vars’ hands come down to gently grip the sides of Grogu’s buy’ce (helmet). It takes a bit of fiddling, before his brother finds the clasp —he unlocks it, and the helmet hisses.
Grogu blinks a couple times when the helm comes off. One hand on the controls of the ship still, he reaches up with his other one. Vars obliges and passes the helmet to him; Grogu cradles it to his lap.
Vars peers at his face. He clicks his tongue and whistles. “Damn. That’s impressive.”
“What?”
“He hit you hard enough to bruise through the beskar.”
Grogu grunts. His eyes narrow, and a small and dull burst of pain sparks from the shift of the micro expression. “The list is fine. ‘S the most important part.”
“Sure.” Vars cocks his head. He’s still staring at Grogu’s face—he wonders how the bruise must look like, to cause the furrow of the in-between of his brother’s brow. “Sure you don’t want bacta?”
“’S just a bruise, Vars.” Grogu turns his attention back to the console. He reaches around the helmet on his lap for the datapad laid atop it. The corner of the screen is cracked from the time Mayfeld had brought it down against his head, but it still switches on when Grogu activates it.
In an instant, names paired along their last known locations flicker at his disposal.
He wonders why he didn’t just take the list to begin with. It would’ve saved him a whole lot of time.
And heartache.
Peering at the list from behind him, Vars makes another low whistle. “Those are a lot of names.”
“Empire had a lot of people.” Grogu keys in the last known coordinates for the name at the top — one Cynne Qenne. “We gotta act fast going through this. Caine’s not going to update these coordinates anymore.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you pissed him off.”
“Vars.”
“You did.”
“Well he pissed me off,” Grogu points out, near petulant. He huffs. “I gave him a warning. I gave him a lot of 'em.”
“You threatened him. You gave him a lot of threats.”
“Same thing.”
“Warnings don’t usually ruin friendships, brother dearest.”
“Never had a friendship to ruin in the first place, vod.” With a push of a lever and a rumble that shakes the ship, the Crest II leaps into hyperspace. Grogu leans back in the pilot’s chair, taking in the sights for a second.
Vars leaps at the opportunity like a ravenous shark. He spins the pilot chair around —Grogu yelps, holding onto the arm rest for balance.
“I’ve decided,” Vars announces. “I’m gonna get you bacta.”
Grogu sputters. “What-? I don’t want-“
“Too bad.” Vars grabs him and slings him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, catching Grogu’s helmet before it could fall with an impressive display of reflexes. He makes his way out of the cockpit with a merry pep in his step. “Hurts my gut looking at your face all banged up like that.”
“I’ll wear a helmet, then. Vars-“
“Nope.”
“It’s just a-“ Grogu struggles. Vars tightens his grip. Grogu seethes quietly. “Godsdamn you, Vars Prente, put me down.”
“Not gonna.” Vars hooks Grogu’s helmet to his belt, next to his own. He begins one-handedly climbing down the ladder.
“I’m not gonna let you waste bacta.”
“Not a waste if you’re usin’ it?”
“It’ll heal on its own.”
“So will a broken bone.”
“Not comparable.”
“Is too.”
“Is not.”
Vars plops him down on one of the bunks. He then kneels, reaching under the bed for the Medkit. “Is too.”
Grogu glares, resisting the urge to kick him in the face. “What if I need the bacta to, like, actually save my life later?”
Vars opens the Medkit, looks down at it, and then looks up at him. His brow is pointedly cocked. “You have plenty.”
“But what if I need it?” With a foot, Grogu pushes the Medkit away from him. He harrumphs. “I don’t need you to baby me.”
Vars’ brow is still cocked. Grogu shoves at the Medkit a little harder for that. “Kark off.”
“I’m just saying-“ Vars begins.
“Save it,” Grogu snaps. He looks away, lip curled just barely to show a sliver of teeth. “Save it.”
There is nothing important about the way Vars looks at him.
“…what if it’s for me?” Vars tries. When Grogu sharply turns to look at him, he quickly clarifies. “I mean, what if it’ll make me feel better if you let me do this?”
Grogu blinks.
He narrows his eyes.
He squints.
“…that’s low.”
“It’s working, isn’t it?” Vars is grinning now.
“Still really low.” Grogu huffs. He still drops his gaze off somewhere to the side, but when Vars rummages around the Medkit and begins twisting the bacta spray to its ‘on’ setting, Grogu doesn’t protest.
“Ah-“ Vars clicks his tongue at him. He holds the nozzle of the spray up and Grogu shuts one eye, letting his brother mist the bacta around the bruise. “You’d do the same for me.”
Grogu does not say anything, just about then. Mainly because Vars was right. Grogu would do the same for him. Grogu would reach into his chest cavity to sew his bones back together with needle and thread, elbows deep in blood and gore and visera, if that’s what it takes to keep his brother alive.
Grogu needs him alive.
“Raincheck,” he says instead. Vars rolls his eyes, because he knows Grogu doesn’t mean it.