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Commander Mayday illustration by @nika6q
A Match for Mayday: Chapter 2
Editor's note: This fic is a collaboration between @nika6q (artwork) and @dystopicjumpsuit (story)
Pairing: Mayday x Flower Farmer Reader
Rating: T
Wordcount: 2.5k
Warnings and tags: fluff and mild angst
A/N: dedicated to @nika6q ❤️🩹
Read Chapter 1 here!
After another day of dirty, sweaty work, you hurry through your shower and grab two bottles of beer out of the conservator, opening them quickly and heading to the front porch for your nightly rendezvous. Mayday hasn’t arrived yet, which is a first, so you settle in to wait for him. The sun dips lazily below the horizon, lighting up the sky in brilliant shades of pink and gold, and then fading into a lavender haze, and finally darkening to a field of deep blue dappled by brilliant points of light as the stars blink into view. You finish your beer slowly, and then drink the second as well, wishing you hadn’t opened it so hastily earlier.
It’s surprising and a little alarming how quickly you’ve adopted your evening conversations with Mayday into your daily routine, and how much you miss it tonight. You can’t help but wonder, What will I do when he leaves?
Eventually, once the evening has fully transitioned to night, you stand with a sigh, stretching your tired muscles and making your way into the house. You can’t stay up and wait forever; tomorrow will be another hard day’s labor, and you are already exhausted. Everyone else has already gone to bed, and the house is as quiet as it can possibly be considering the sheer number of clones currently sleeping in your guest bedrooms.
Just as you turn off your bedroom light and settle into bed, you hear the sound of an approaching speeder bike. You rarely receive guests, particularly not in the middle of the night, so you hop out of bed and cross to your window to peek outside. The vehicle slows to a halt in front of your garden, and the rider dismounts and leans against the bike.
Mayday. You recognize him immediately. He stares contemplatively at the garden for a while, and then he turns his head and looks directly at you. His movement startles you, and you nearly flinch away from the window before you realize that you are standing in total darkness and there is no way he can see you watching him. Can he?
He stares at your window for a long, long time, until at last, he straightens and walks into the house. You don’t hear him enter, and you don’t hear him go to his bedroom, and at last, you return to your bed and will yourself to sleep, ignoring the quiet voice in your head that asks where he had gone. It’s none of my business, you think, and you almost convince yourself.
Rain begins to fall in a steady drizzle the next morning. By noon, the weather is miserable enough to chase everyone indoors. Hexx and Sunni, enthusiastic hosts that they are, round up the rest of the clones for a loud game with incredibly complex rules. You scan the group but don’t see Mayday, so you slip quietly out the door while they’re all distracted. As you make your way to the barn, you hear a rhythmic scraping sound that piques your curiosity. Warm light spills out of the open doors, beckoning you in from the cold, gray rain.
The barn hasn’t housed animals in decades. Instead, you use it to store your farm equipment and agricultural droids when they’re not at work, and as a place to dry the flowers that you sell in the off-season. The familiar botanical aroma washes over you as you enter, along with something new—something at once strange and nostalgic. When you see Mayday, you slow to a halt just inside the barn.
He has set up a workstation at the open end of the barn, and as you watch, he runs a hand planer over a large beam of lumber, shaving off flimsi-thin curls of pale wood that flutter to the ground. You immediately identify the fresh lumber as the source of the unknown scent. That slow, rhythmic rasping sound comes again and again as you watch him work, and something about it sends tingles down the back of your neck.
Mayday hasn’t spotted you yet, and you take a moment to appreciate the confident way he moves. His bare hands glide over the wood as he feels for rough and uneven spots, and the muscles of his forearms flex and bulge as he drags the planer across the surface. His movements are hypnotic, mesmerizing. He handles the wood with scrupulous care and attention, and you feel a brief, ridiculous surge of envy toward an inanimate object. He stills abruptly, and you raise your eyes from his hands to see him watching you.
“Hello,” you say, feeling a little foolish that he caught you gawking.
He doesn’t look angry, though, or even amused. He regards you with the same intense focus that he had directed toward his project only a moment before. You lick your lips reflexively, and his gaze drops to your mouth and then back up to your eyes.
“I came to see if you wanted to come in out of the rain,” you say, feeling a little proud that you managed to get the entire sentence out without stuttering, even if your voice catches suspiciously.
He looks briefly out the door to the torrential deluge. “I didn’t even realize it had started raining.”
“It’s been raining for hours,” you say. “Aren’t you cold?”
He smiles at that. “This is nothing compared to Barton IV.”
“What happened on Barton IV?” you ask.
“Nothing good,” he replies. “We were lucky to make it out alive. If I never see snow again, it will be too soon.”
“You should be safe from snow here,” you reply. “Even in the winter, we rarely get anything more than rain. It’s what makes Nakadia such an ideal agricultural planet.”
Ugh, am I seriously talking about the weather right now? you chastise yourself. Still, Mayday looks intrigued as he arranges his tools neatly and walks across the barn to join you.
“Where are the others?” he asks.
“They’re all inside playing a game,” you reply.
“I’ve never been one for games,” he comments offhandedly.
“Me neither,” you say. “But I’ve also never been one for standing out in the rain when there’s a perfectly warm house available.”
“We’re not standing in the rain,” he points out, moving subtly closer to you, close enough that you can smell the vanillin of the sawdust on his shirt; the salt of his skin; and beneath it, the faintest hint of something spicy and warm and a little smoky—something uniquely Mayday.
“True,” you admit.
He frowns and starts to reach for you before pulling back. “But you were. Your hair and clothes are all wet. You should go inside and get warm and dry.”
“Will you come with me?” you ask. He hesitates, and you scramble to add, “We can go in the back and avoid the crowd if you’d rather.”
“Is there somewhere we can go where they won’t find us and drag us into their game?” he asks with a smile.
You shrug. “It’s a big house. I’m sure we can find something.”
“Lead the way,” he replies.
On impulse, you take his hand and tug him along with you, dashing across the field through the downpour. Mayday follows at a more sedate pace, and he slows you down as his fingers tighten around your hand to keep you from slipping away.
“Don’t you know you know you get wetter when you run in the rain?” he asks, his voice laden with amusement.
“But we’ll be out of it and into the warm house sooner this way,” you laugh. “Come on!”
He allows you to hustle him along, and soon the two of you slip quietly into the back of the house and kick off your muddy boots. Uproarious laughter bursts from the front of the house, signaling that the game is still in full swing. Your eyes sparkle with mischief as you lead him down the hallway and duck into a room, easing the door closed behind you. You turn to see Mayday surveying the room with astonishment.
“What is this place?” he asks.
“It’s my reading room,” you reply.
His eyes widen as he takes in the bookshelves that line the walls; the soft, overstuffed armchairs; the small wood stove that crackles cheerfully in the corner.
“I’ve never seen so many books in one place,” he says. “At least, not paper ones.”
“Holonovels are wonderful, but there’s something so comforting about a physical book,” you say by way of explanation. “I started collecting them when I was little, and I just never stopped.”
“Have you read them all?” he asks curiously.
You laugh. “I intend to read them all, but I have to admit, there’s an embarrassingly large stack of them waiting for me to find the time. You’re welcome to anything that catches your eye, though.”
His gaze flicks almost imperceptibly toward you before he turns to examine the contents of the shelves. “Which one is your favorite?”
“That would be like asking me to pick a favorite child,” you reply. “I can’t choose just one.”
“Humor me.” His voice is a low rumble.
You pull a well-worn volume off a shelf, and then another, and another. Mayday chuckles as you pass them to him.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to get through all of these in the time I have left here.”
“You can take them with you, if you’d like,” you offer. “You can give them back at the wedding.”
“You’d trust me with them?” he asks.
You think of the care with which he handled the fire lily, the conscientiousness and respect you witnessed as he worked on the planks of hardwood in the barn.
“Yes,” you say without hesitation.
His hair is wet with rain. A strand has fallen forward, and you raise your hand to brush it out of his eyes, but he stops you, his hand wrapping gently around your wrist.
“Don’t.”
Startled, you meet his eyes. They blaze with intensity, but he steps back to put a little distance between you.
“Mayday?” you whisper.
“Don’t do something we’ll both regret,” he says quietly.
“Sorry,” you stammer as mortification floods you. You pull away from him. “I’ll go.”
He doesn’t try to stop you as you retreat and close the door behind you. You hurry to your bedroom, pressing your cold hands against your burning cheeks. How could I have misread the situation so badly? No wonder he would have preferred to stay in the barn.
You don’t bother going to the porch that night. With all the rain, there’s no sunset, anyway.
It’s easy enough to avoid Mayday after that. He keeps to the barn, and you have plenty of work to do elsewhere. You miss watching the sunset each night, but it’s a small sacrifice for your peace of mind. Before many days pass, the wedding preparations are complete. The rest of the wedding party arrives, and your farmhouse is absolutely at capacity, but at least by tomorrow everyone will be gone and you’ll have your farm to yourself again until the wedding day. All that remains now is the rehearsal.
It is awkward as kriff. You subtly keep your distance from Mayday as long as possible, forcing yourself not to look at him. You try to focus on literally everything else: the wedding planner, Sunni’s lovely dress, the way Hexx’s eyes light up when he looks at her, the excited chatter of the other bridesmaids. Anything except him. He doesn’t approach you, either, so at least that makes your life infinitesimally easier, even though it stings.
Unfortunately, you can’t evade him forever, and as the wedding planner hustles the bridal party into position, you brace yourself for impact. Mayday moves to stand beside you, and you meet his eyes briefly. He looks so kriffing handsome, it’s unfair. The late afternoon sunshine glints in his dark curls and lights his eyes in shades of gold. You paste a bland, polite smile on your face as he holds out his hand to take yours. You walk down the makeshift aisle on Mayday’s arm—maid of honor and best man, as bad luck would have it. That unmistakable warm, spicy, smoky Mayday scent washes over you, and you breathe shallowly as you try to ignore it. It’s a simple ceremony, thank the Force, because you are too distracted by trying to appear nonchalant to pay much attention to the officiant’s instructions.
The ceremony is set to take place with the expansive fields of flowers as a backdrop, and at the entrance to the garden, a gorgeous wooden archway has been constructed. You realize with a start that this is what Mayday has been building since he arrived. The workmanship is stunning. Up close, you can see that the entire structure has been crafted to fit together so perfectly that it requires no screws or fasteners.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Sunni sighs happily.
You nod, unable to speak.
“I had him install it permanently as a thank you for letting us have our wedding here,” she says with a radiant smile. “Our gift to you.”
Your breath catches as Sunni envelops you in a crushing hug. Wonderful. A perpetual reminder of how badly I messed up with him. Just what I needed.
By supreme force of will, you make it through the rehearsal and the dinner party afterward. The food is beautiful and by all accounts delicious, and you don’t taste a single bite as you eat. After the meal, the group dances and drinks and parties late into the night as tiny lights twinkle in the trees overhead. Veetch pulls you onto the dancefloor and spins you around until you are giggling and dizzy, and for a moment, the ache in your chest eases.
Mayday doesn’t dance, to the visible disappointment of several bridesmaids. He is wrapped up in a discussion with a few other clones—also commanders, if you remember the introductions correctly. You refuse to give into your impulse to eavesdrop on their conversation, instead smiling brilliantly at Veetch, who is both charming and a surprisingly excellent dancer. The music changes to something slow and romantic, and he pulls you closer and settles a hand on your waist.
Because you are not totally devoid of common courtesy, you focus on your dance partner instead of looking back at Mayday. Had you looked, though, you would have seen the way his eyes, unreadable as ever, follow you across the dancefloor as you sway in Veetch’s embrace. Veetch flirts in a harmless, meaningless way that you know better than to take seriously, even if you were interested. Everything about him screams that he’s enjoying the single life and has no intention of giving it up any time soon.
So you dance with him and with Hexx’s other groomsmen, and by the time you stumble, alone, into your bedroom, you are so exhausted that you fall asleep almost immediately. When you awaken, nearly everyone has gone. Hexx and Sunni are still there, but Sunni tells you that Mayday had ordered the men to wake up early and ensure the house was spotless before they departed. Sunni and Hexx only stay long enough to hug you goodbye before they, too, leave for Coruscant, and then you are alone.