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You woke up to his restlessness, accompanied by the soft mumbles of your name. He seemed to be sleeping next to you, his muscular body against yours. Yet, you sensed something was wrong—he was uneasy, his brows scrunched up in pain, his chest rising and falling in quick, uneven breaths. You breathed sharply, your eyes widening with fear. He was trapped in yet another one of those nightmares—or tortures, should you say—where he was twisted, tortured by the brutality and cruelty directed at you, doomed to lose you again and again in his arms, trapped in that sick cycle until you woke and pulled him back to reality. It was like a thick blanket darker than the night lay ahead, draped over him, suffocating and paining him with every passing second.
This wasn't his first nightmare, and you were certain it wouldn't be the last. Since the night you began sharing the same bed, you had grown accustomed to seeing him fighting, struggling for you—for your life—even in his sleep. One of the things you never wanted—to see the man you loved fighting his demons—had crept into your life, and there was nothing you could do about it apart from watching him from afar.
Living as a bounty hunter for years, constantly entwined with danger and remaining ever vigilant, was no easy occupation. Din had spent nearly his entire life aware that he was living at the barrel of a gun. The brutality of his atrocities and the cold breath of death—taking lives without flinching—had imprinted on his spirit and shown him how fragile a soul could become in the face of a knife. Overcoming the trauma brought on by that stress had not been easy, nor did it seem likely to become so. Even though he had left that life behind and welcomed a new beginning with you in the mines on the same day he vowed to become Mand'alor, he still found himself haunted by visions wherein he was unable to protect you. A knife nearing your skin or a blaster shot aimed at you was enough to devastate him, plunging him into a state of mania that could strip away his ability to think.
It would take time for him to heal these scars, to let go of those memories—and maybe, he would never truly heal. Even worse, he hadn't taken those dreams seriously before your paths crossed.
Why would he?
He had been a stranger on an unfamiliar road, with no one by his side.
At that time, he used to have horrific dreams wherein he saw the figure of a girl he didn't know—never seen, lying in a pool of her own blood, her soul on the verge of slipping away. It was as if those nightmares had foreshadowed what was to come. But he had dismissed them, closing his eyes to those scenes as they were nothing but fatigue or tricks of his mind. Yet now—now he had no such luxury. Because you were here, at the center of his life, and you were far too delicate, too precious to be jeopardized. Every possibility that involved you felt like something he must protect at all costs.
You sat up in the bed as panic surged through your bloodstream. Your mind whirled with helplessness at the sight of him. You realized his rough hands gripped the sheets painfully in his fists, knuckles gone white from the strain. He was mumbling, begging desperately for someone in the dark corners of his mind to spare your life. Seeing him struggle so helplessly over an illusory circumstance twisted your stomach into knots. Each time, you realized—this truth buzzed in every inch of you—that even in a deep slumber, he was ready to protect you so fiercely, so powerfully that his fists became harder than beskar, clenched so tightly that he was on the verge of tearing the nerves in his hands, splitting open his joints until they bled.
And he would keep fighting until he realized that you were safe and sound, sleeping in his bed next to him—skin to skin, nestled in each other's warmth.
You shrieked his name, your voice cracking with fear. Desperately, you reached out, placing your hands on his warm chest, feeling the brutal pounding of his heartbeat beneath your palms. You shook him, trying to jolt him awake. "No—" your voice caught in your throat. "I'm here, Din. I'm here."
You pleaded as you kept shaking, trying to wake him up. "Wake up, Din—it's not real!" And with a startle, his brown eyes shot open, and a cry of shock escaped his mouth. He took deep breaths and tried to fill his lungs with oxygen because you knew well that the ragged breaths he had been taking weren't enough to compensate for his effort while fighting for you in his illusion. As he shifted in the bed to sit up, your trembling hands found Din's pale face, turning it toward you. "Look—look, I'm here. I'm okay, I'm alive." He was still trapped in the aftershocks of the dream, unable to register what you were saying. "What?" One of your hands remained on his sweaty face while the other found his hand, guiding it back to your cheek. "It's me, your cyar'ika ," you whispered under your breath as you pressed his hand against your skin, wanting him to feel your warmth, to sense with every fiber of your being that you were okay. "Feel me, Din."
You waited, not leaving your eyes from his, hoping he would notice the warmth of your skin and return to reality. "I'm here, in our bed, and I'm safe, my love," the words slipped from your lips as a whisper since the lump in your throat was too painful, too suffocating. Unshed tears burned your eyes, but you had to get yourself together for him.
You couldn't let him see you cry.
You couldn't allow this man, who had devoted himself to protecting you even in his dreams, to witness your tears—it would feel like a betrayal.
You watched his shoulders, tense with mounting stress, slowly begin to sag as the aftershocks of the scenes he had witnessed dissipated in his mind like a cloud. He leaned into your touch, resting his face in your palm as he let out a deep sigh. "I had the same dream again," he said hoarsely. "You died again in my arms—"
You interrupted him, refusing to let him finish the manifestation of the illusion that caused him so much agony. "No. That didn't happen, and it won't."
You pulled him against your chest, wrapping your arms around his broad frame; as you embraced him, he rested his head just above your heart. "It kills me to see you like this, Din," you spoke, your voice on the verge of trembling as your hands found his sweat-dampened curls. "I can't escape—the dreadful past of mine won't let me go," he murmured, his voice cracking under the burden of his stress. "No matter what I do, I'm losing you, and there's nothing I can do about it."
Your heart shattered into a million pieces in your bosom at his helplessness. On nights like these, you could only imagine how mentally exhausted he felt, how devastated he was to be wasting away in a nightmare. The worst part was that you couldn't do anything about it. All you could do was pull him out from that dark world into reality and prove that you existed, that you were alive. You leaned down and placed a kiss on the back of his head, your heart swelling with sorrow.
"You know, that’s not even a possibility," you said, your hands tracing Din's still-tense face as his head rested against your chest. "Because I have you."
You felt the wild thumping of Din's heart begin to slow on your skin, his breaths becoming calmer and more regular. He lifted his head, his eyes locking onto yours. "We have each other, mesh'la. "
"I am so lucky to have you," you replied, your eyes scanning his tired face. The remnants of the nightmare were almost gone, leaving only the weariness and somnolence behind. Leaning in, you pressed a kiss to his lips. "You fight, even in your dreams, love. Sometimes, I worry for you."
He let out a muffled chuckle, finally able to shake off the aftershocks of the nightmare. "If I don't have someone to fight for, even in my dreams , then what's the point of being alive?" he said, and your heart twisted and ached in your chest.
You thought to yourself, maybe he's right—perhaps that's what love really is.