Abril: I just want to say, regarding the title of this chapter, I mean captive as in, Obi-wan is still captive. He's freed, but still captive. I know it's silly but I feel the need to specify that XD

When they reach The Fury, the only thing keeping the young teen on his feet is Jango's tight, sturdy grip on his thin bicep. With it, he drags the boy into the vessel and dumps him on one of the back seats of the cockpit where hopefully he won't get any funny ideas like opening the hatch and throwing himself out. Hopefully.

The Mando locks the boarding ramp, turns on the engines, and busts out of the atmosphere like there are demons on his tail. There are.

Once he's reached outer space and is a few good parsecs away, the man lets out a heavy sigh. Jango closes his eyes and lets his helmet fall against the back of his seat; 'Way to escalate things out of proportion', he silently chastises himself. It's not like he hadn't let a few thousand bad things happen to people over the years all because it was none of his business but… with his own captivity coming alive inside his mind and the kid… he's not even a kid really, he's probably more of a young man now, still.

Something had just come over him.

The man gathers himself and takes a deep breath, ready to face his new interloper. He rises from his chair and turns to the stranger. After several seconds of silent examination, he sees that this is indeed no kid as his first impression had led him to believe. But he does look incredibly boyish, stuck in that strange space between childhood and manhood. Jango wonders how old the kid really is.

The brunet is hunched up into himself, he is unmoving and still as a rock, a trapped little mouse, classic prey behavior. If I do not move the hunter might not find me here. But subtle, very subtle is the slight tremble that runs all over the kid's body, like little rippling waves of distress.

He takes a few steps, the sound of his own boots against the floor somewhat ominous even to himself, with the kid cowering like he is.

"Hey," Jango stands in front of the boy. He can see the tension in his limbs, taunt and locked now that the Mandalorian's attention is solely on him. Awkwardly he kneels on the floor so he does not loom over the scrawny human. "Hey, it's okay."

Jango's years of captivity and solitude have not done him any favors and it shows in the awkwardness of his every action. He sighs quietly and takes off his helmet in the hopes of making himself more approachable.

"I know I was very harsh back there, and that probably isn't helping my case right now, but I was only helping and trying to do what I judged to be best in the moment." The words feel hollow in his mouth, false, even though he really means them. The brunet still hasn't moved, his eyes fixed on his lap like his life depends on it.

Jango suppresses an even bigger sigh and the urge to grab at his own hair and pull. It's easier when he can just ignore people or make himself a threatening presence so no one feels the urge to talk or approach him.

"I'm sorry… about that." He attempts half-heartedly.

The kid. Does not. Move.

He sighs now, giving up on whatever it was that he's trying to do. He lowers his head and brings up a hand to his forehead trying to order his thoughts and figure out what the next thing to do is.

Jango risks a look at the boy, and yep, he's still stuck in the same way he's been sitting since the Mando dropped him on the seat. If Jango listens carefully enough he can hear the erratic intakes of breath the brunet is making a valiant effort to regulate in a quiet manner.

The Mandalorian takes him in, the teen is skinny and an unhealthy shade of pale that is covered up with dirt and grime. He focuses on the skin, ignoring for now the bulky slave collar on the kid's neck; that's a nest of fire-beetles that could explode on him at any given time and he's not touching it with a 10-foot pole right now. The skin is bruised and has odd scars here and there; right at the opening of the v on his shirt peaks an ugly, long, thin, red mark, it looks a few days old and in desperate need of bacta.

Now that is something he can do.

"Tell me where you're hurt," Jango asks for the sake of the teen, "That looks painful," he points at the showing skin, "I'm sure a little bacta would do won-".

As he reaches out with his hand to tug at the shirt in order to inspect the wound a little better, the kid bolts up from the chair and slams his back against the wall behind him. There's a loud bang as the brunet's head collides against the metal. Jango stands up as well, slowly, and raises his hands in a pacifying gesture. The kid looks dizzy from the hit but his eyes are trained on the Mandalorian like he's got an active grenade in his hand.

"Hey, hey, hey, easy kid, it's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you," The teen is quiet but his rapid breathing is loud in the space between them. He's pressed as much as he can against the wall and his blue-grey eyes show just how terrified he is.

"It's okay," Jango says again, a little more softly, "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise." He backs away a step, two, and lowers his hands. "I… know this is probably less than ideal, I get that. Just tell me where I can take you. Your parents? A guardian? Whatever place where you've got people that'll have your back, I'll get you there."

The kid says nothing, his eyes piercing into Jango's despite the fear that festers in them.

"I'll take you, you just need to tell me where to go," he offers again "Are you from Kalevala? Mandalore?"

Silence. Eyes. Breathing.

"Come on kid, you've gotta give me something here," Jango pushes but the teen just won't budge.

The man sighs in frustration, stops, and once again looks at the boy. He's in terrible shape, Jango knows that, from neglect of his captors and active harm done to him. But the brunet is also noticeably exhausted, he'd been that way since they ran their way to The Fury, only up and going thanks to the support Jango's grip had given him. He suspects that weakness has been there since before they were even fleeing. There are beads of sweat on his forehead and a tremble in his limbs he had thought was there because of fright, but there is no doubt that it's also the exhaustion.

The kid is still oh so frightened of him; Jango truly did pick up nothing more than a small, scared animal.

So he makes a decision.

He steps further away until his back touches the opposite wall and he settles there.

"You can go," he gestures to the entrance of the cockpit. The brunet takes a second to direct his eyes there and then back at Jango, for once another emotion touches his face, want, but he's wary, he doesn't trust this to be a genuine kindness "It's okay, I won't bother you for now, go." The man insists.

The teen shuffles his feet a little, inching slightly towards the door, back pressed to the metal behind him. The boy expects this to be a game he doesn't know the rules to, one which he can't hope to win, but the desire to run is there, festering in his veins.

Jango takes a leap of faith himself and closes his eyes, dropping his head back to the wall and leaving himself seemingly vulnerable to the other.

A minute passes and then he hears it, a tentative set of soft steps, and then the thundering of running feet as the boy takes off as fast as his legs will take him and away from the Mandalorian.

Jango opens his eyes to an empty cockpit and walks to the pilot seat, slumping down as he sits.

"What a mess," he whispers to himself, massaging the space between his brows a bit. He really doesn't have time for this… well he's not actually doing anything different from what he's been doing these past months… But still, he's not equipped to deal with another traumatized being that is not himself.

The Mandalorian busies himself with the console, checking that everything is in order with the navigation system so that The Fury won't collide with anything in her drifting. He leans on his side and feels an unfamiliar bulge in one of the pockets. Jango makes a soft huff of surprise and remembers the bag of whatever that he had grabbed back at the camp, he takes it out.

When he tugs at the cord that closes the fabric, and when he opens the bag a whiff of spiced air hits him, and not the kind of spice that he wishes he had shoved down the throat of the slavers who had held him captive, but the good kind of spice.

Seasoning.

He takes out of the little bag a small pellet like thing and breathes in. On further inspection, he finds a great number of other pellets in a range of different colors from orange to lilac and they all smell pleasantly different. He gives a testing lick to one of the red pellets and scrunches up his nose at the intense flavour.

"Hu," he hums to himself. What the hell is he supposed to do with seasoning of all things?

Jango closes the bag. He gets up for his sit with a stretch and puts the little bag away in one of the cupboards over the small, unused kitchenette. It's a pity that he hadn't grabbed something more interesting while he was there.

Following that train of thought, the man goes back to the cockpit to investigate the datapad he had grabbed, hoping that at least he'll find something of use there. But even before trying to hack into it, he sighs, frustrated, as he leans his forehead against the thin metal. He's not fooling himself, after the stunt he pulled, he is going to have to lay low for a good long while.

What a mess.

·~·~·~·

The kid stays hidden Manda only knows where for the rest of the day, and the one that follows. Jango stays mostly in the cockpit and his room in an effort to give the boy some space, but by mid-cycle the next day he's pretty worried the kid is unconscious somewhere in a crevice of The Fury from lack of food and water.

He begins his search.

He thinks it should be pretty easy to find a hurt, scrawny teen in an enclosed space, especially with his bounty hunting skills, but half an hour later without anything to show for it, Jango begins getting antsy. He's not in the ventilation system, which he scanned thoroughly, as it always seems to be option A for hiding purposes. After a while he has to admit to himself he's thoroughly at a loss.

Jango keeps looking out of sheer spite for himself until finally, after a while more, he finds the teen cramped in a narrow space between the metal crates he has in the cargo hold. It's a wonder how he even got there, but the brunet is sleeping like he's not in the most uncomfortable position in the galaxy. He hates to do this, the teen really looks like he needs a couple months of uninterrupted sleep, but Jango's pretty sure he needs food even more.

As quiet as a feather, the Mandalorian places two ration bars and a cylindrical water container in front of the kid's hiding space, then he steps back and crouches, knocking on the metal wall behind him. The brunet startles awake and gathers his limbs to himself as best as he can inside the small space, his eyes fixed on Jango with intensity.

"Hey, I brought you some food," and please take a shower, the man thinks but doesn't say it, the kid has a foul smell to him, something which Jango's not remotely surprised by. "You need to eat, I'm willing to bet Death Watch wasn't feeding you properly, and it's been two days already. You'll drop dead at this rate."

The teen eyes the offered food with equal amounts of desire and mistrust, but only for a moment, keeping an eye on the threat is much more important. Jango waits a few moments in which neither of them does anything. He sighs then and stands up, the boy flinching back at his movement.

"Eat," he commands again before he walks away, he does not leave though. He waits patiently behind the partially open sliding doors that lead away from the hold and keeps an ear out for any slight movements. There is silence for a couple of moments before he hears a slight rustle and then a clink. He waits for a beat or two before peering out, there is nothing in front of the crates anymore. Jango smirks when the sound of a tearing wrapping paper reaches his ears and walks back to the main deck, content.

·~·~·~·

For the next couple of days they end up playing this sort of game, at least that's what it feels like to Jango, were he'll deem enough time has passed and go look out for the kid and leave for him a ration bar or two and some water at a reasonable distance. The teen is never twice in a row in the same place where he had hidden before, he repeats places of course, but this way if Jango wants to catch him off guard it'll be harder. Smart kid that one.

Still, though, their rapport is tenuous at best, if ever Jango tries coming closer to him than strictly necessary, the brunet will bolt away to hide somewhere else, his face painted by a deeply rooted fear that's hard to overcome.

Jango is, in all honesty, quite worried about a couple of things. One, the multiple untreated wounds he suspects the kid has, besides the ones he's glimpsed at. Two, the almost nausea inducing rank that follows the boy everywhere he goes. He really needs to talk him into getting a sonic and incinerating the clothes he's wearing as soon as possible. And three, and most importantly, he needs to take the slave collar off of the kid.

He had taken a monumentally stupid risk when he took the teen away without figuring out what kind of collar it was, but there had been no time to figure it out. Jango had hoped it was mainly a shock collar and with the distance they pulled it wouldn't be able to activate anymore, which seeing as the kid was fine and unexploded, was probably the right call. But these instruments are unreliable in the worst ways possible, and definitely not the, 'I'll stop working all of a sudden,' kind of way. There was as much a possibility of the collar electrocuting the kid to death because a code hadn't been entered, as there was for it to malfunction one day and explode because of a random glitch.

That had been a lapse of judgment on his part, and he can't thank Manda enough that nothing had gone awry. He couldn't afford to make those kinds of mistakes.

So yeah, it is an understatement to say Jango has some things on his mind, there are plenty of those. His only comfort (and if he's completely honest with himself, curse), is that he is the only person he has to listen to on this ship, the kid barely breathes loud enough as it is.

And really, what can Jango even do here? He'd take the kid to his family but the brunet is not talking. He'd leave him in a random town or one of the cities of Mandalore, but he can tell the kid's not well in the head right now. He'd leave him and then what? He'd run away, skitter around stealing food and living on the streets? Starve to death? And Jango… it's not like he has anyone out there who he still trusts, not that he knows of. He'd leave the kid with someone but there's just… There's just him now.

He should just dump the teen in whatever planet he lands on next, Jango did just fine once he escaped from his own captivity after all. But… he can't do that to the kid, Jango looks at him and he sees terror everywhere, he sees himself of course, but that didn't stop him from leaving behind the rest of the slaves to their own fates once he escaped. Still, he can't… he can't do that to the boy, he… he doesn't deserve that. And some deep part of Jango that he can barely recognize or even tell that is there anymore wants to help. In whatever small way he can.

·~·~·~·

Next time Jango finds the kid he is to his astonishment inside one of the walls that covers machinery and wiring of the ship, and how he even thought or managed that would forever remain a mystery to the man. He only notices the hidey-hole because the metal plaque covering it looks just minusculely out of frame. He closes his eyes and takes in a breath to center himself.

He knocks softly on the wall to announce his presence, though he's sure the kid already knows he's there; after that first time he'd found the boy, Jango had only caught him two more times asleep, but it was rare, his instincts were sharp and attentive at all times.

Slowly, very slowly, he takes the panel off and sets it to the side, then backs away a few paces and sits down at a reasonable distance, the kid's grey eyes track his every move like a hawk.

He taps a couple of times on the floor a bundle of 3 bacta packets that he's brought with him, he's going to tackle all of his worries one by one, no matter how long that takes him. Baby steps though.

He adds to his worries electrocution via the ship, not to be confused with electrocution via the collar, because the kid's back is nested between the multitude of tangled wires and boards and connectors. Either the kid has no self preservation instincts or he's dull, which he doesn't think he is with the skills he's displayed aboard The Fury, but even Jango would hesitate to make a bed out of dangerous wiring.

The dark haired man takes in a deep, deep breath and lets it go to alleviate his sudden flare of nerves. He looks at the teen and then lifts the bundle up to eye level.

"I know you don't trust me, and that's fine, but you need to take care of your injuries. Either I do it or you do it." Jango looks pointedly at the other, "Tell me you understand." He adds when the kid unsurprisingly doesn't reply.

After a moment, there's a hesitant nod from the brunet, the Mandalorian almost smiles.

"You know how to use these?" The man asks for good measure. The boy gives him another nod, more quick and certain than the last.

Jango wants to risk one more thing, just to see how much the teen can be pushed right now. Instead of leaving the bundle on the floor he stretches out his arm and leaves the packets well within arms reach of the other, it hangs in the air between them in what must feel like a trap about to spring. They are both motionless.

After a moment, with a slight tremble to his limb, the brunet extends his own arm slowly from within the enclosed space, the tips of his fingers close at the edge of the offering, as far as he can keep them from Jango's. When he pulls the bacta away Jango lets him.

He hears the faint exhale of relief from the teen as he presses the packets to himself. Jango offers him a nod and stands up to leave. He doesn't return the metal plaque to its place in the hope the kid will find a new place to hide that is not within risk of high voltage. He swears if his job wasn't hunting down people he would never find the kid on this ship.

But Jango is pleased, that's one thing he can check off his concern list, he's got many, but progress is progress. He hopes the kid will at least do a decent job with the bacta because he's not going to let Jango help anytime soon.

·~·~·~·

The teen hides, this time around, inside the weapons storage, and possible detaining cell, that hides behind a wall of the cargo hold. It's dark and quiet in there but for the humming of the ship, it rumbles like an undisturbed sleeping beast. But the boy likes it, it's the only thing he likes about this damned floating cage.

He lifts up his right pant leg, his ankle looks nasty and he winces at the little movement. It is somewhat harder to ignore the pain now than it had been when he had been chained and rubbing it raw every day with his movements. He breaks one of the bacta packs and carefully applies the gooey substance to the whole area, though he does so sparingly he has… he has many things that would benefit from a little bacta and he can't be too generous with it.

The blue substance offers him a small measure of instant relief when its coolness touches his tender skin, but it's also unavoidably painful. He waits, waits until slowly the pain starts receding. He sighs out slightly, relieved.

The feeling hits him so hard, this minuscule sense of respite he hasn't felt in years, that he's robbed of breath. His face falls down, and he cries then, brought down by what should've been a pleasant thing. He bites his hand to muffle his sounds and cries, his body shaking against his will.

He chokes back his sobs and bottles up everything else, his skin is littered with angry red marks everywhere and he should be taking care of them while he can.

Alone and face streaked with tears, he ignores the relief the bacta gives him, scared he'll be struck again by the feeling of his heart clenching inside his chest.

·~·~·~·

Two days later, instead of Jango finding the water container in some random place, a thin wisp of a teen enters the common area when he's checking out possible jobs on his datapad, the boy's hair is shaggy and it almost hides the whole of his face but for a few openings where Jango catches sight of his gray blue eyes.

With his back always facing a wall, the boy walks silently forward and places the water cylinder on the table, his eyes cross Jango's dark ones for a moment, and then he slithers away back into the hidden depths of the ship.

The Mandalorian smirks to himself.

Abril: I feel like my narration style is confusing, are ya'll good? Anyone not understanding stuff as they read? Please tell me, I don't know what I could do but… yeah.

Again, I'm really touched by all the sweet comments you guys have left me, I hope the story doesn't disappoint :heart:

Also, also, I have a tumble for art if any of you are interested in that, I'm: the-red-butterfly