Abril: Me realizing I haven't posted in a while "Oh yeah… maybe I should do that."
Anyway, y'all deserve a spot of softness after what I put you through last chapter, so enjoy 3
The Fury drifts. It's the night cycle and it's quiet inside its cold metal shell. On the couch of the common room sleeps a thin boy, his long reddish locks disheveled around him. He breathes irregularly, there's a slight stutter to it.
Red dreams.
He's pleading, begging for them to stop, over and over and over and over and over again.
But they never do. Even when they say 'beg on your knees,' and he does, praying for mercy, they do not listen and they laugh. His words are meaningless to them, his cries and screams for help are void of any intelligible emotion. Nothing that would get through the Mandalorians at least.
He's so tired of screaming himself hoarse and feeling like no one understands his words. But it's not that they don't understand, they just don't care. He howls into the void but it's empty, so his voice reaches noone. He's alone.
Eventually his words begin drying out, little by little, saying fewer things every day, pleading less, word by word ghosting away until there's nothing left of his voice. In the end it's like it's not there anymore.
The Mandalorians don't like this, they liked his mewling they say. But there's nothing more he can say, or scream or shout; his words just are gone. They beat him about it first, more and more until they manage to get him to scream. Once they realize he still cries and tears his throat in agony, well, then the loss of his begging doesn't seem so bad after all. And anyway, good riddance, it was getting annoying.
·~·~·~·
Jango doesn't think he's ever felt like this, not even when he was a slave and any show of resistance could spring a beating on you. He feels like his body is too big, his presence too large. Every time he steps into a room and Red is there he wishes he could shrink into himself, just like the kid does. He's never felt that before. He hates it.
But the kid is afraid and he doesn't know what to do about it. It's even worse than when the kid was hiding all the time, because Jango can see it in him, it's a resigned sort of fear, like whatever happens next will be inevitable.
So he tries to make himself small, 'don't be afraid.' He wants to say, 'it's okay, Red.' But he dares not say such things. It would be insulting to the kid's intelligence. He had promised before, but his word is not to be trusted.
Jango resigns himself, like Red, to live like this. And because he already has committed himself to a bounty he does research. Back to work it is.
·~·~·~·
They eat quietly, while Jango works, the sound of Red's tearing wrapper barely audible. For the first time in a long time Jango wishes he had some music on, if only quietly, so he wouldn't feel so suffocated by the silence.
His contact is a less than savory Kel Dor, stationed on a small planet even less savory called Parato at the borders of the Mid Rim. Still, it's a good enough place to stock on rations, fuel and everything they've been running short of…
Jango stops his musings when he catches Red out of the corner of his eye. He lifts up his head slightly and finds the teen is looking sadly at the finished bar. The boy is weird about food, sometimes he can't finish half a ration, then he bounces back and Jango swears the boy could stuff three of them in one sitting, and the ration bars are dense. Then some other days the boy doesn't seem like eating at all.
"You can grab another if you want," he says without thinking, suddenly forgetting they're not precisely on speaking terms. The air grows a little more tense around them, unsurprisingly. Jango soldiers on, "you can grab another from the cabinet if you're still hungry."
The ginger looks at the columns of cabinets beside the small unused kitchenette, his face contorts in an unhappy frown, just slightly on the side of nauseated. The Mandalorian wants to chuckle but he doesn't, he knows the kid is not overly fond of the rations. The boy looks down at the table then, quiet, subdued. Like a good little captive.
Jango closes his eyes, pained, reminded every second of his mistakes. Just there right where the boy sits, just there to the side where he slammed the boy against the wall with rage worthy of his enemies. But this isn't about Jango or his guilt or his mistakes, it's about Red, and aren't most things about the boy these days?
"It's okay if you don't want another but… if you're hungry I think you should eat," Jango says and leaves it at that. Going back to his data pad.
A few minutes later he listens to the ginger stand up and open the rations cabinet. The Mando doesn't smile though, he doesn't deserve to.
·~·~·~·
Jango wakes up one night cycle, there's a noise he doesn't recognize and that doesn't belong in the ship. He grabs his blaster, instantly alert. It's only Red and himself on the ship, but something could have happened while he slept.
His door opens with a smooth swish, blaster at the ready. The noise comes from the right towards the common room and the cockpit. 'Red,' he thinks and hurries to his aid. But when the sliding doors to the room open, there is no threat, only the quiet whirl of engines and systems smoothly running through the night.
His eyes fall on the couch and the form slumped there, the sounds he'd heard are the teen's desperate intakes of breath. He sets down his blaster on the table and rushes towards Red.
"Kid?" He asks as he kneels beside the other, keeping a bit of space as to not violate the silent accord of distance he and the boy have.
But Red sleeps.
"Wake up," Jango commands strongly in the hopes of rousing the ginger, "Red wake up."
But the kid's rapid intakes of breath continue to go on, short and interrupted. He squirms in distress and his eyes scrunch tightly. Every second that passes the action of breathing seems to become more difficult. The Mandalorian succumbs.
He shakes the kid with a firm grip, but he stands at the ready to take his hand away at the first sign the boy gives him that the touch is unwelcomed.
"Red!"
The teen blots up into wakefulness and Jango is pushed back by an unseen force. It's not a terribly hard push but he ends up laying on the floor. His mind blanks, his instincts kicking in.
Decommission the Jedi as quickly as you can. Where is his gun? Why isn't he wearing his armor? It doesn't matter, his hands are more than enough if he's sufficiently fast.
Jango sits up, crouches, his hands at the ready, he's done it before and he can do it again. But through his laser focused mind come through the sounds of distressed breathing, a wheezing for air. The fog clears from his mind and he sees Red, he's almost scared of how quick his response time was, of what he could've done because of it, but he pushes that thought out of his mind. The boy needs him.
"Kid, kid." He crawls forward until he's by the teens side. Red claws at his chest, at his neck, trying to find the reason for his lack of air but there's nothing there. "Look at me, you have to breathe." But the boy's out of his mind with panic, words do not reach him.
Jango grabs one of the scratching hands -there are angry red lines already running through the discolored skin of his neck and down to the v of the opening of his shirt- and forces it to himself. Red flinches back, a pitiful sob escaping his lips, trying to feebly dislodge his wrist from the grip, but most of his mind is trapped around the thought of air, and that he's not getting it.
"Breathe with me, okay?" The Mando places the shaking hand flat over his chest and takes in a deep inhale "Breathe, Red. Please."
The teen keeps trying to take his hand back and gasping in barely any air. But Jango keeps breathing, and talking softly, on and on until the kid finally tries to copy his rhythm. He chokes on his first intake, and the next, and cries as he exhales what little breath there is in him.
"It's going to be okay, just breathe," The man soothes. Red chokes and coughs out painfully until his breathing returns to a semblance of normality. "There you go, breathe, it's okay. It's okay Red'ika."
They breathe together, in and out and in and out.
When he's sure the kid will be fine he lets go of his skinny wrist, shuffling slightly backwards to give the teen some space, but a quick desperate hand clamps down onto his hand. Jango looks up at a quietly terrified face. He sighs, tired, and lets Red squeeze his hand with ferocity.
He sits down close to the couch, relaxing his shoulders, ready to wait the teen's panic out. He wishes the kid would talk to him, maybe it would be easier, if Red could just unburden himself from whatever demons haunt his head.
He probably wouldn't tell them to Jango though.
"It's okay, it's okay," Jango repeats again and again, drawing gentle circles on the ginger's hand with his calloused thumb. A few objects rattle from time to time around the common room. The Force, he thinks with instinctive disgust, but pushes the thought away and thinks of how that means the ginger is still out of sorts, of how the boy needs his help.
After a long while, Red takes in a deep, steading breath and slumps over his legs, his grip of Jango's hand goes slack. He seems exhausted.
"All good?" He asks, the teens face hidden now behind his hands, almost like he's ashamed. "Okay, so… I guess I should-" He gets ready to stand up but once again the kid's hand stops him.
Red looks at him with big wide eyes, and Jango thinks just like he did back at Kyr'tsad's camp, that they look like an overcast sky. But the Mando is not sure what the boy wants exactly. Red starts breathing a little funny again, taking in a breath but then letting go immediately, he repeats this several times until the man starts worrying again. Before Jango can say or do anything he hears it.
"Thank you."
Jango is speechless. It's softly said, like a whisper, and the voice rasps with disuse and possibly all the hash breathing he just did for the last 20 minutes. The teen shudders in a breath.
"Thank you," he repeats with emphasis though just as quietly.
Jango squeezes the teens hand, looks at the boy's earnest face framed by his long, messy ginger hair.
"You're welcome Red," There's nothing much he can say to that.
·~·~·~·
Truce, Jango thinks. There's a truce between the boy and him now. The space around them has lost its suffocating quality and though the boy is much subdued there is softness in his eyes again when he looks at the man.
The Mando's not sure he deserves that, he helped the kid, yes, he isn't heartless, but he doesn't deserve this kindness Red is giving him, however small it might be. Not after what he did to the teen. But Jango will not rebuke him, he can't bring himself to. He just wishes the boy wouldn't, that kind of heart will get him killed one day.
Despite this Jango… well he's relieved, happy almost. The tight knot in his chest loosened, he can breathe once more. He might not deserve this but he's damned glad he has it.
There's wariness there, of course, but one day Red sits, for the first time again, beside him in the copilots' seat. Jango is unexpectedly filled with dread instead of gladness that the boy is approaching him again. He feels wrong when the teen offers him a small quirk of the lips in greeting, a pair of questioning eyes that say, 'may I?'
He can't stand it.
The ginger hasn't even settled down completely before the words are trying to get out of Jango.
"Red what…" he stills, taking in a deep breath. The kid beside him is attentive. "What I did to you when I took off the collar… that was a terrible thing that I did to you."
They are quiet, the boy holds himself stiffly, shoulders tense with anticipation. Suddenly it comes to Jango's mind, the moment when he shared his name with the boy.
'Jango Fett, pleasure to meet you.'
Panic at the mere mention of his name. Red knows exactly who he is and what that means when the teen is a Jetii himself. This is not a child unaware of history. The Mando closes his eyes for a moment, there is too much weight between their people, too much hurt. Why, why did it have to be this kid he bumped into, of them all?
"Whatever grievances I might have with the Jetiise, whatever history might be between me and…" 'your people' he doesn't say. "All of that. It doesn't-" oh but it does matter, he can't say that either. Jango shuts his eyes and lets his forehead fall against his fists.
"What I did to you was wrong Red, you did not deserve that," he forces out of his mouth. "What I'm trying to say with all this, is…" he looks back up to the ginger, whose eyes are so wild and unsure "you don't owe me any kindness, or forgiveness. Okay? I know if I promised not to hurt you it would feel hollow but… You don't have to," he gestured vaguely at the teen, "whatever you might be doing. You don't have to do it, to be safe on this ship."
Because Jango knows what people will do for survival and that is never what he wants to be. He never wants to be a jailer, a slaver, a master. Never. Not to Red.
The ginger looks deeply into him and there's… there's compassion in his eyes there. It turns Jango's stomach, 'standing in a moral high ground indeed,' he thinks rueful.
Red's eyes tremble, struggling to hold in some emotion Jango can't tell. He looks down as a tear falls down his cheek. The teen lifts up his hand and places it over Jango's brown one, the man stutters in a breath. He doesn't understand the boy, he doesn't understand what this means or what Red wants to communicate, but he knows, he knows it all goes back to his kindness.
He doesn't know if he's forgiven, he doesn't think he is, much less if he deserves to be -he doesn't. But Red… what a wonder he is.
He doesn't deserve the boy but here they are.
He covers the pale hand with his own and gives it a gentle squeeze. They let go. Red curls up in the copilot seat and finally watches the stars again. Jango sighs out a light breath. It's nice… to have company again.
In the days to come they orbit each other once more, just like they had before, or at least something close. Two lonely stars lost in the black, aimless but together.
·~·~·~·
Red dreams.
He dreams that he sits in the cockpit of the ship and looks at the stars forever. Sometimes Jango is there, they talk for hours, the conversations going on and on, but he's not sure what they talk about. Sometimes it's not Jango at all, but a taller man, broad shouldered and long haired, his eyes are kind and soft as he looks at Red, they don't talk but his presence comforts him greatly nonetheless.
When he wakes up there are tears in his eyes.
·~·~·~·
"We're docking on Parato today," Jango informs his companion as he prepares the coordinates on The Fury. "We need fuel and supplies; and I need to check on a job as well while we're there." Jango turns to him and Red munches dispassionately on a ration bar at the table. His eyes are attentive though. Jango takes in a measured breath.
"I will just say… that if you're planning or running away I would rather it not be this planet you choose to do that on. No, this is not a threat and I don't want to hold you against your will, you can very well disappear on me whenever you like. But on this planet the way you look you'll be screaming for slave traffickers to snatch you. That clear?"
The teen nods, interested, but not the kind of interest that says, 'I will do exactly what you've asked me not to do.' Which Jango is very grateful for.
"All that said," the man turns to the console again, tentatively, "you can come with me for the supplies if you want." The ship is quiet behind him and he has to remind himself that the boy's not going to answer him with words. He turns his head, "you coming?"
There's a quick shake of his head, he looks like he might be sick just at the thought of going out from The Fury which is… strange, but Jango can deal with that, it's one less thing to worry about.
"All right, don't let anyone that's not me in here, okay? I don't trust people in general, but I trust the people on that planet even less."
They jump hyperspace, and the world blurs around the cockpit window.
·~·~·~·
If Jango was the kind of man inclined to be happy, or even content, at the prospect of finding good work, he'd probably be feeling that right about now. But he's not that kind of man, and most people that contract his services are sorry excuses of sentients at best. So yes, he's got work, and yes it'll pay well, but he's not really pleased about having spent the last 2 hours talking with a sleazy Kel Dor.
The Fury should be all fueled by now, and the water tanks filled up, he only has to purchase the rations and he'll be done. He might stock up on some ammo though he's pretty well covered on that front, it does no harm to be prepared.
After he's finished paying for the flavorless rations -and a small box of a mix of flavored ones, he's not heartless, he's seen how the kid looks when he forces down the bars- he turns to look at a shop of canned goods and other edibles you must actually mix and cook to eat. Jango hesitates.
There really is no need for those, ration bars have all they need nutrient wise and are less wasteful and time consuming. It's the most reasonable thing to do aboard a ship that barely docks as it is.
He keeps looking at the shop.
·~·~·~·
"Hey Red, I'm back," he calls into the ship as the ramp to the cargo hold opens. The kid peaks from the entrance of the room at him; his hair looks fluffy and sort of orderly, he probably took a sonic while Jango was away. But there's a frazzled look to him, jittery and nervous, he also seems quite tired and his brow is slightly furrowed. The man wonders what that's about.
A hover cart is coming in behind him, he walks to the ginger.
"Show me your palms." The order seems to throw off the teen as he raises them instinctively to obey but also hovers them close to his chest in a protective manner, palms opened up, because what could Jango possibly want with his extended hands?
Jango hides his arm behind his back and brings his fist forward. The boy flinches a little at the motion but Jango places something gently in the kid's hands. Blue gray eyes widen and beneath the tired expression there's something like a faint turning of the lips on the boy's face, almost but not quite a smile. There is a bright blue fruit in his palms, round but misshapen in the way you can tell it was grown without its DNA being altered.
Red looks at him in question, eagerness filling his thin face.
"Enjoy," Jango says, he can admit, a little cheekily. The ginger doesn't need to be told twice as he stuffs himself with the fruit. The Mando chuckles under his breath and smiles.
When they leave atmo at the end of the day, Red sits by his side in the copilots chair, he looks like he really isn't enjoying the natural turbulence that comes with take off, but once they come out from the night of the port and into the light of the system's star, the teen settles. As the stray rays brush into the cabin, Red closes his eyes and seems to take in the poor heat coming through the protective layers of the ship.
Maybe Jango could find a rustic planet, one with few people where they could walk outside and not be too careful. Someplace Red wouldn't have to be afraid or worried about whatever it is that stopped him from going out today. Yeah… maybe.
·~·~·~·
Deep into the night cycle, Jango settles into the repetitive motion of putting away all the new things he bought for the ship. Red, almost timidly, stands beside him in the common room cabinets, looking like he wants something.
"What is it, Red?" He never really expects an answer, but it seems so natural a thing to do, just talking to him, even when the ginger never replies back.
The quiet 'Thank you,' the boy had given him a few nights ago still has him reeling with some emotion he can't even name. It honors him greatly to say the least.
Red takes in a steading breath and gestures to the open crate with the ration bars Jango is ordering in the cabinets. The man is pleasantly surprised by the offer.
"Sure, knock yourself out." And he steps aside to make some space for the teen, while he moves to the rest of the food that goes on the next cabinet. And the booze, can't forget the booze cabinet he's thankfully getting restocked.
They settle to work quietly and rhythmically, it's almost meditative as they go down to the crate, up to the cabinet, put the food in place, and back to the crate, on and on again. Red probably enjoys it, that's the sort of things Jetii do right? Meditation? He's… not completely sure to be honest, it's not really an area of knowledge he's very interested in from his enemies, he only needs to know how to fight and how to defeat them. He only needs to know of their sins.
An uncomfortable thought begins blooming in his mind. He remembers now that the Jetiise stole Red away from his true family and brainwashed him to become one of them. He pushes that thought aside for a later time, taking in a calming breath.
"Don't worry about filling up the shelves Red, we can put what's left in the cargo hold," he tells the teen once he sees the cabinet's almost full.
"It's Obi-" Jango stops in place, a can of food in his hand, and turns to the kid.
Red isn't looking at him, brows set and eyes inside the cabinet, he seems to brace himself, taking in short breaths that he has to quickly let go off. Just like he'd done that night after his nightmare. It's very hard to speak, Jango can tell.
"Obi-wan." The man is at a loss, he's not sure what the kid is saying to him. The teen clears his throat slightly, his words still raspy and so quiet they break a little. "My name's Obi-wan." He looks at Jango from the corner of his eye. Through the soft spoken tone the boy uses he can tell Red- Obi-wan, has a slightly core accented voice. Not very surprising considering where he probably comes from.
"Obi-wan," he repeats as he looks at the ginger and nods. He smiles lightly then; this moment feels sacred. It's not the first thing the kid has said to him but it almost feels like it. Jango is so very touched by this, whatever this is. A show of trust or Red regaining a bit of himself. And what a wonder that… to trust him. That after what he did the teen could still trust him.
Jango takes this moment tightly in his hands and locks it away in a special part of himself where there is also Jaster beside a campfire flame and a caring hand on his shoulder. He treasures this, but then he makes himself shatter the moment, afraid to let the silence stretch for too long and scare the kid away from talking more some other time.
"I guess I should stop calling you Red now, huh?" He jokes, a deep chuckle settling in.
They continue working for a bit until Obi-wan looks at him again.
"Red is okay." And Jango thinks he loves this quiet voice the kid has, unprettied by Manda knows how long of disuse, slightly fancy as core accents tend to be. It feels like the teen is sharing something secret with him.
He could get used to this quiet voice and this quiet presence, this silent working together and coexisting in The Fury. Jango could get used to having company again, to not be alone and being content with that.
His heart stutters in his chest at the idea.
Abril: I feel like I need to say this, but for this story unless, otherwise stated, the events of Jedi Apprentice didn't happen. So no Melida/Daan, no Xanatos, no Bruck (I think lol). So all in all a less shitty Qui-gon (but he does have some flaws in this universe that I'll address later on).