#young Din Djarin | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writerlyhabits · 11 months

Text

Ration Packs

Pairing: Din Djarin x female reader

Word Count: 4.7k

Summary: based on this request...

“I’m guessing it’ll be ration packs for dinner?” you added, nodding towards the empty satchel hanging from his hip. “There wasn’t a market on the way back to the ship,” he almost pleaded, trying to explain his intentions, but you simply gave him a tight-lipped nod in acknowledgment. “I’ll get the packs started so it's ready by the time you’ve unloaded.” Your voice lacked its usual kindness. This shift in the conversation had you speaking with him as if this were all just… business. Had he pushed you too far? Were you trying to remind him that he had hired you to be here? That he should be keeping things… professional? Fuck. This was why he worked alone.

Warnings: mild language, miscommunication [but not in a horrible way, don’t worry, I’m better than that], young dumb in love din djarin, mild angst, angst with a happy ending, everything is in Din’s pov because i love his dumbass train of thought, idk it’s pretty soft

AN: oh my god i’m back from the dead! I told you guys i’d be back 😂 This request has been sitting in my inbox for probably about a year… and I have no end of apologies, but i’m finally done and it’s a miracle I don’t hate it 😂 I did change the prompt a little… the idea of them putting Grogu to bed was cute, but I had an idea for a younger Din and just fell in love with it, so i ran with that. I hope you guys enjoy 💖 Thank you @deceiver-of-gods for putting up with me all this time, ily 😘

Din had traveled through the toughest parts of the galaxy without batting an eye. He’d run with a mercenary group and proven himself to have more skills, more hits, more value… and more of a moral compass than anyone else in the group. After fighting his way out of their grip, he had taken out high-level targets with ease to earn his way into the Bounty Hunters guild. Din continued to be not only one of the youngest of their ranks, but also the most highly sought after. And after all of that?

You were his greatest challenge.

His Razor crest had taken one too many hits for him to be able to repair on his own, and the costs of repairs on his pre-imperial ship were starting to eat into the funds he usually gave back to his covert. Not providing for them was not an option; the Beroya was supposed to send their spoils back to the covert to provide for those in hiding. This is the way…

So when he landed on a planet with lush, colorful flora, and a generally trusting local people, he least expected you to strike a bargain with him. He needed a mechanic, and you wanted a ticket out. Free boarding and transportation in exchange for a live-in repair crew, he just had to get you the parts. It was his perfect solution. He hired you on the spot and scheduled to ship out as soon as the Crest was back in working order.

On that first day of travel, Din had only just entered hyper-speed when he became overly critical of his ship. The cold, metal surfaces of the hull were uninviting, full of sharp edges, and devoid of any personality. It didn’t take him much longer to realize that, to an outsider, his armor looked much the same.

But he’d never seen it that way before. To him, the Mandalorian armor was a sign of home, of belonging. It had been his savior in his childhood, and a beacon of his people as he grew into his own. He had tucked away into coverts where the blank metal lining of their ships and their walls meant protection.

But you were not Mandalorian. You hadn’t grown up around sharp edges and cold surfaces. The place you called home was filled with warm colors and soft curves, the buildings made to flow with the organic structures of the nature around them, letting in the bright sunlight necessary for its growth. You yourself walked with an elegance Din was unfamiliar with, treading softly on the ground and smiling brightly at him each time your kind eyes met his dark visor. You had shared your warmth with him since the moment he’d met you, despite the coldness he was certain he portrayed, and it surprised him how much he found himself drawn to it. Drawn to you.

You were everything he wasn’t. But Din would do everything in his power to make sure you never came to regret agreeing to this strange setup, that you never felt isolated or alone because you’d chosen him – a walking wall of cold beskar – as your traveling companion.

At first, he’d merely wanted to bring you things that reminded him of your home, things he thought might do the same for you. Anytime he was in a market passing through, either on a supply run or with a bounty in tow, he found something colorful to bring back to you. The first few had been small trinkets, things you could keep in the small cupboard you had decided to call your quarters, or delicate pieces of jewelry he would later catch you wearing around the ship.

The feeling Din got seeing you wear something he gave you made something warm swell inside of him… It made it hard to come back to the ship empty-handed, especially with the promise of your soft smile when he held his hand to you with a new gift.

On one of his trips, he’d brought back a woven tapestry; the craftsmanship had been beautiful, and the colors matched those of the outfits you wore the most around him. Din was about to launch into an apology when he first gave it to you, not having thought about where you would even be able to put it, but his statement was cut short when you happily grabbed it from him and turned on your heel to find something.

Not even a few moments later, you returned with a handful of powerful magnets you’d picked up on a market a few planets back, and he watched as you excitedly hung the artwork from one of the walls in the Crest’s hull, creating a curtain in front of one of the panels on that wall – you must have thought it was as ugly as he did.

“What do you think?” You had asked him, and he watched self-consciousness start to creep in now that your initial excitement was starting to wear off.

“It looks good,” he’d replied a little stiffly, still having a hard time finding the courage to speak around you. A bounty hunter, with hundreds of captures under his belt, was still too shy to talk to his mechanic… he at least wasn’t dumb enough to miss the irony in his own predicament, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t his truth.

Since then, Din had started bringing back more things you could use to decorate the ship with; tapestries, blankets, and cushions accompanied the trinkets and jewelry he brought back with him. He could tell that your favorite of his gifts had been a soft shawl he’d seen hanging at a market in the rural areas of Naboo. The politician’s son he was paid to deliver back home had gone on about the luxury material it was made of, something about ancient processes and unique resources… All he knew was that it brought out your natural beauty when you wrapped it around your shoulders, and he felt his cheeks get warm under his helmet when you did.

The two of you started to fall into these new routines fairly easily, and with all of your redecorations, it was becoming a welcome change. In the evenings – or at least what you thought was evenings in the darkness of hyperspace – you would prep a set of ration packs for the both of you. It was always two of the same kind so that you could feel like you were “sharing a meal,” a concept he had very little experience with. At least, he hadn’t for a very long time.

Since eating required removing his helmet, Mandalorians often took their meals in solitude, or within the confines of their family. You, on the other hand, were used to shared meals in dining rooms with someone at every seat, and communal dining halls bustling with people. At first, Din was afraid you might take offense to him leaving during meal times, never quite sure how to phrase his dilemma.

Luckily, he never had to.

You caught on pretty quickly to his predicament, handing him a warm ration pack with a smile before turning to let him eat in peace. He always rushed through his meals in order to join you in the hull, to thank you for your silent understanding by coming down to talk with you as you ate yours at a leisurely pace.

As the weeks went by, Din picked up on some of your silent requests as well, memories of food that didn’t need to be rehydrated before you ate it. He began looking out for other booths at the markets, and fresh ingredients began coming home in place of some of the gifts and trinkets he always brought back with him. Each time he did, a home-cooked meal would follow, and Din always made sure he expressed his gratitude when he came back down to join you for the second half of your meal.

Your routines continued like this for a while, silently assessing each other’s needs, and wordlessly adjusting to accommodate. And it worked. The Razor Crest felt more and more like a home rather than the metal casing of a ship, small traces of your personal touch nearly everywhere he looked. The food had been better, the companionship had been better, far better than the cold silence he’d had to put up with before you came to him.

And Din started to catch on to just how much his own feelings revolved around you.

He craved your warmth at the end of a rough day, he sought to provide your happiness, to get your approval… He tried to be better at actually opening his mouth, being able to express more of his feelings for you outside of your usual, quiet understanding of each other. He tried asking you more questions, wanting to not only hear about the events of your day but to actually get to know you better, showing you how much he genuinely cared. And Din was elated when you started to do the same in return.

After he came back to the ship from a particularly taxing hunt, he heard your soft footsteps descending the ladder from the cockpit while he secured the unconscious bounty into the corner of the hull you had affectionately deemed “time-out.” The most uncomfortable chair had been secured behind some of your tapestries, acting as a set of curtains that kept the bounties from view.

When Din emerged from the hanging fabrics, he could feel some of the tension leave his body at the sight of you in your work clothes, a warm smile dancing on your grease-stained cheeks, wiping your hands on the old flight suit you’d brought with you from home. No matter how difficult his hunts had been, being able to debrief with you upon his return always made him smile beneath the helmet.

“Hey!” you lilted.

“Hey,” he responded, still a little awkward despite how long you’d been working together. He was getting better, but it could definitely still use improvement.

“How’d the hunt go?” you asked, gesturing to the closed curtain beside him. “Obviously successful if you’ve got someone in time-out.” Din chuckled under his breath at your quip, mulling over the events of his day before he replied.

“It was fine.” You looked at him expectantly for a few moments, waiting for him to continue.

“Just… fine?” you half giggled, one brow raised in question while you donned a crooked grin. It hadn’t really gone bad, he did have the bounty in hand. It could have gone better, but nothing that came to any detriment in the end…

He nodded. “It… went well. There’s nothing to report,” he shrugged, unsure what else you were looking for in his answer.

But your face fell. Only for a moment… but enough for him to see it.

“How are your repairs coming?” He tried, hoping to stir the conversation again, to fix whatever had caused your sudden change in attitude.

“Fine. There’s nothing to report.” Your answer was short, both in your words and your temper. You usually volunteered the finer details of your projects, explaining with a dramatic flair all of your trials and your victories, stories that Din was always happy to be an audience to.

Why hadn’t you done so this time?

“I’m guessing it’ll be ration packs for dinner?” you added, nodding towards the empty satchel hanging from his hip. One that usually carried whatever gift he had brought for you. Dank farrik… he already hated coming back empty-handed – something you had never made him feel guilty for – but right now it was only making him feel worse.

“There wasn’t a market on the way back to the ship,” he almost pleaded, trying to explain his intentions, but you simply gave him a tight-lipped nod in acknowledgment.

“I’ll get the packs started so it's ready by the time you’ve unloaded.” Your voice lacked its usual kindness. This shift in the conversation had you speaking with him as if this were all just… business. Had he pushed you too far? Were you trying to remind him that he had hired you to be here? That he should be keeping things… professional?

Fuck. This was why he worked alone.

One of the downsides of having grown up around the Mandalorians was that his concepts of interpersonal relationships were skewed. The two of you were operating on completely different sets of rules, and where you had been able to read each other incredibly well… Now he was left to try and figure out where he’d gone wrong.

With Mandalorians, he knew where he stood. They spoke with purpose, meaning exactly what they said. Even growing up constantly harassing and sparring with Paz, Din knew where his sentiments came from; competition, comradery, and a deep passion for his people. But outside the covert… Din was still finding his footing when it came to the beings he interacted with. Riding with the mercenary group had at least taught him how to weed through the tangled lies that spewed from their mouths, trusting them only as far as he could throw them – if that.

But you were nothing like those slimy low lives. He didn’t know how to start friendships, how to engage in small talk… and he had no idea where to start when it came to the way you made his heart rate pick up. You made Din nervous, but you were also a comfort. You were new and familiar all at once, a new adventure as well as a place of rest.

You meant so much to him… and he’d managed to drive you away just as quickly as he had let you in.

…

The fog of uncertainty hung around the ship for days, and with it, the cold emptiness he had been so accustomed to in his solitude had returned. But after the warmth you had brought to his Razor Crest, being without it was almost suffocating. Din missed you.

That was a fact he was trying to wrap his head around, seeing as you still lived with him on the ship… but it wasn’t the same. You stopped humming while you worked on different panels across his ship, blanketing the hull in silence. Any questions Din tried to ask you were met with short, quiet responses. Surprisingly, you still made the effort to prepare a ration pack with yours during meal times, but when he rushed back down from the cockpit in record time to join you, you were nowhere in sight.

There was nowhere to go inside his ship. That was one of the things he’d liked about it; there was room for him to live on board comfortably without giving his bounties anywhere to hide. And yet, you still managed to avoid him. When he entered the hull, you escaped to your room. When he climbed up the rungs to the cockpit, you would make some quiet excuse and scurry out the door behind him. No matter where he went, what he said, or whatever measures he took to try and catch you off-guard, you were gone before he could even open his mouth.

He was fucking sick of it. He had made a promise, when you came aboard, that he would make sure you never came to regret choosing this life with him. That you would continue to choose to stay with him, to choose him over the home planet you were so desperate to leave. He made a promise, and he intended to keep it.

After landing on Nevarro a few days later to return his bounty, Din’s plan began to unfold. He walked out of the run-down cantina Karga liked to meet up at – insisting that he was going to fix it up and make it ‘a place of gathering’ – the spills of his hunt clanking against the mechanical chip he had tucked away in the satchel that sat on his belt. A chip that, if missing, would cause systems in the cockpit to go offline.

Something his mechanic would find during her daily diagnosis check.

Din felt a pang of guilt at the thought of you being buried arms deep in the underside of the control panel with no hope of finding the repair, because he was the one to take it from you... But then he thought about the worser fate; what if you figured out what was missing, and had more reason to dislike him than before? His guilt quickly turned into slight panic, making haste to get back to his ship to enact his plan before your clever brain could figure out what he’d done.

When he returned to the Crest, the harshness of the metal hull was almost overwhelming. You had started taking down your tapestries and decorations, save for everything but the “time-out” corner, and it felt cold. You didn’t come out to greet him or welcome him back, let alone acknowledge him at all. You hadn’t done so since the time your conversation had taken a turn for the worst. He did, however, hear a loud metal clang and your familiar grunt of frustration from exactly where he assumed you would be. He wondered if you had even heard him come on board…

Din quietly discarded his weapons before stealthily moving to the ladder just below the cockpit, stopping in his tracks when he heard a slew of colorful curses leave your lips. He waited a few moments until the sounds of your hard work continued, none-the-wiser to his oncoming ambush.

By the time he reached the top of the cockpit, he took a moment to assess the situation and figure out the best approach. You were exactly where he thought you would be, laying on your back just to the side of his pilot’s chair, agile hands fiddling with different cables and boards inside his instrument panel…

And your head snapped up to look at him when he made the door to the cockpit slide closed behind him.

You stared at Din for a couple moments before you opened your mouth. “Did you… are you cornering me?” When you put it that way, this was not going quite as he’d imagined, despite everything going according to plan. He had to keep going.

“You’re ignoring me,” he said firmly, his tone reminiscent of one he took with his bounties.

“Fucking maker, did you hunt me?” You asked with furrowed brows, and your slightly agitated tone made him fairly certain you didn’t actually need his answer. “I live on the same kriffing ship, and you had to treat me like one of your bounties just to say something to me?”

“I had to talk to you. You wouldn’t let me,” he pressed, keeping his voice steady. You gave a huff of indignation.

“I don’t have time for this, Mando, I have to fix your ship,” you threw at him before your body thumped dramatically on the ground as you went back to your work.

“So you are angry at me,” Din stated, sounding more like an observation than a question. He could work with angry. You shot him a glare without moving too much from your position, and he took that as a good enough indicator to continue his interrogation. “Did I do something to upset you?”

“Mando…” you started, his moniker leaving your lips in an exasperated sigh, not without a flame of annoyance lurking behind it.

“Don’t make another excuse. I’m tired of avoiding this.” He watched the bluntness of his words hit you, not surprised when you furrowed your brows as you started to slide out from under the console, sitting up to scowl at him properly.

“Another- what? I didn’t make any fucking excuses, I’m not avoiding anything,” you fired off, your tone indicating the exact opposite of what you were saying.

“Then why have you stopped talking to me?” Din expected another fiery response, but instead a split-second of realization crossed over your face before it was replaced with one of irritated confusion. It made him — him, the stone-cold Mandalorian bounty hunter — shift on his feet.

“I stopped talking to you?” You countered, and you waited a moment to let him respond… but he didn’t know what you expected him to say. “Right, because you’ve been super talkative after ‘there’s nothing to report’,” you mumbled, and it caused those same words to ring in his head from the night everything went wrong. You had said them so coldly…

After he had said them to you.

“I- I meant no offense,” he tried a little lamely, still not understanding where he had gone wrong, but wanting more than anything for you to understand that he was willing to fix it. “I didn’t have anything to say.” You gave another sigh, but this one was softer, like you were about to level with him. It was progress, if nothing else.

“Nothing? You couldn’t give me the details of your hunt the same way I tell you about the market? I mean, it’s not as exciting as I make it out to be, I just... “ You trailed off and looked away from him without finishing your sentence, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. He was finally getting answers out of you, he was going to get to the bottom of this, and make good on his promise to keep you happy. This was the way.

He was quick to kneel in front of you, trying to get closer to your level to get away from his interrogation tactic, and communicate that he was willing to listen and receive. “You just what? Help me understand.”

You scoffed a laugh as you shook your head. “There’s not a lot to understand. I like talking with you, I like when we share stories. I just… I wanted to be close with you.”

Din wanted to bang his head against the wall. With or without his helmet. This all started because he was an idiot who didn’t know how to talk? He was a bounty hunter, he should have been smarter than that. He should have been able to tell what had caused such a shift, and been able to fix it before the mission could go sideways.

But, in all fairness, he was a bounty hunter who was used to being alone.

Before Din had lucked into having you travel the galaxy with him on his hunts, he came back to an empty ship. There was nobody else to talk about the day with. And after living amongst the Mandalorians, a people of few words, he wasn’t exactly in the habit of speaking to himself or others. Before you, everything that surrounded Din was just… quiet.

“But… this is just professional, I get that now. I’ll stay out of your way, and I won’t pry. It is your ship, after all.”

And he was about to get himself into even more trouble if he didn’t figure out how to speak right fucking now.

“No,” he started firmly, desperately catching on to the tail end of your admission, but not entirely sure what was about to come out of his mouth. “This isn’t- I don’t… I’m not good at talking.” Strong start Djarin.

“What?” You asked softly. If anything, you pretty much justified his statement. He took a breath to try and steady himself, to dig through the chaos inside his head and find a half-way coherent string of words to offer you, to clean up his mess.

“Mandalorians are quiet. Bounty Hunters keep to themselves. I’m not used to talking,” he reiterated, and he watched your confused expression shift gently into one of intrigue, your sign for him to keep going. “I wasn’t trying to shut you out, I just… didn’t know what else to say. I’m used to sparing people any details that aren’t deemed necessary. Now I know that I shouldn’t do that with you. I’m sorry.”

Din was pleased to find a small smile growing at the corners of your mouth. “I mean… You don’t have to give me every detail. Just the good stuff,” you smiled, making Din’s heart feel warm. He didn’t realize how much he missed the radiance of your smile until now, feeling like he was finally stepping into the sun after spending so long in the dark.

“Just the good stuff… So I’ll tell you how much blood there was when I-”

“No, no thanks,” you cut him off quickly, making a fake gagging sound as he laughed under his helmet. “I take it back, let’s go back to no more talking, I’m good. I’ll just stay up here with all my busted circuits, thank you very much.”

“Please don’t, I can’t go back to quiet,” he said quickly, the smile still plastered on his face as the weight of his words hit both of you.

I can’t go back to quiet.

It was true, he couldn’t. The past few minutes talking with you again, even when you were angry and yelling at him half of the time, had him feeling better than he had in days.

“Oh yeah?” You offered, and he could tell by your knowing smile that you had come to the same realization that he did. You knew how much he had come to need you. “You don’t want a break from all my rambling?”

“Never,” he admitted. Din watched your shoulders relax and your soft smile get brighter as his answer left his helmet, and he realized how much you needed him in return. It made a warmth bloom from deep within his chest, warming him all the way out to the very coldest parts of his Beskar armor. “Never stop. I want you to fill this ship with all your stories, real or exaggerated.”

It caught him by surprise when you leapt up from your spot on the ground to meet his height, flinging your arms around his neck as you held him tight, fitting together perfectly even as you knelt on the floor in front of each other. With only a little hesitation, Din wrapped his gloved hands around you, arms circling your waist and pulling you flush against the plates of his armor, and soaked up everything that was you.

This is the way.

Sooner than he would’ve liked, he felt your grip around his neck loosen, and you leaned back to lock you gaze with his dark visor.

“As much as I’d love to catch up, your ship is driving me crazy and I have got to figure out how to get these control panels back online,” you explained, and Din slowly started to realize he hadn’t thought this part through.

“Well, I uh…”

“You’re welcome to stay and chat, if you’re in the talking mood. I’d love to hear about your meeting in town,” you offered playfully, sending him a wink as you began to shuffle yourself back down under the open compartment of his shift.

Instead, he got down on the ground and laid himself next to you, as if he was going to look at what you were doing with the repairs. Your hands stopped mid-action as you looked at him, and he enjoyed the airy laugh that escaped you at his actions.

“Or you can watch from here, that’s fine, too.”

“I was actually going to offer a suggestion,” he started timidly. You turned away from him as you focused on the wires in front of you again.

“I'll take anything you’ve got. I haven’t seen anything like this in ages… I’ve only got one idea left, but I doubt it’s right. It’s like the reactor chip is missing, but the only way that thing would’ve even budged is if someone-” You stopped in your tracks as Din lifted a gloved hand into your peripheral view, the small reactor chip held between his fingers for you to see.

You paused a moment before turning your head dangerously towards your companion. He could see the corners of your lips twitching as you did everything you could to avoid a smile, and he remained grateful for his helmet as it hid his beaming face from view.

You snatched the chip from his hand and looked back to your circuits. “Get out of my cockpit,” you said quietly, the last few words of your threat lost to your laughter. Din couldn’t stop his own laughter from coming through the modulator as he began getting up from the floor to do as he was told. “You’re making the ration packs tonight,” you added, the smile on your cheeks evident in your voice.

"This is the way."

Thanks for reading!! If you’d like to be notified when I post a new fic, be sure to follow @writerlyhabits-library + turn on post notifications! 💛

#din djarin #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #young din djarin #request #anonymous request #kam takes forever to do shit #my writing

892 notes · View notes

sytortuga · 7 months

Text

Deafening silence

General summary: Pre-canon. Din goes to the Wild Space on a mission to capture a Kaleesh bounty. He knew it wasn't going to be easy, but he didn't expect the mission to have permanent consequences on his life.

Warnings: poisoning, general violence, animal attack, animal injury, depictions of sickness, hallucinations, permanent nerve damage, permanent consequences on way of life. Some warnings are omitted to avoid spoilers. Proceed with care if any of the above are triggering subjects.

Author's notes: I'm so excited to contribute to this @ailesswhumptober!!! This work wouldn't have never happened without the talented @itzagoodthing, who's been the brainstorming partner in crime: contributed with many ideas, did tons of editing and proof reading. It has been sooooo much fun!!! I'm very grateful 🤩

This will be a 3 chapter fic. Upcoming chapters will come soon! Posted here, but you can also read it in AO3 if you prefer.

Happy whumptober 2023 everybody!

Chapter 1/3: The Bounty

Din woke up with a start. For a second he couldn’t figure out where he was. It was surely not the Crest. He closed his eyes, listening to the noises around him: the Covert, its members surely starting along with their day. The sound of heavy steps up and down the hallway leading to his quarters. That was certainly what had woken him up. He felt tired, but forced his eyes open. With the strong Imperial presence in the sector, the decision of going out one at a time needed to be taken, he knew it, and accepted it. The knowledge of their numbers needed to be concealed, hidden from the enemy to protect their covert’s whereabouts. But under such circumstances, the task of being beroya, the tribe’s provider, was starting to weigh and to take a toll on him.

Physically he felt exhausted. Their numbers were slowly growing, often taking in foundlings, or, more rarely, taking in the remaining members of other tribes that had been destroyed by Imperials in the effort of completing the Mandalorian Purge. They counted on him to gain enough credits to supply for the needs of the Tribe. But the toll was more than physical. Being almost continuously away from the Covert, his nearly complete absence to the daily activities and interactions with the other members of his Tribe, spending almost all his time alone in the Crest, started to take a toll also on his soul. He knew all this, but had promised himself not to dwell on it. Being the Hunter was his mission. He would stand up to his station.

Finding the strength to get himself up from his cot, Din put on his armor and pulled aside the curtain separating his quarters from what was now a busy Covert. He navigated the network of corridors. Sewers. He hated that they had been pushed to hide in the sewers. Everyone hated it but they all implicitly trusted that better times would come.

Moving towards the exit, Din crossed several other Mandalorians, who just watched him pass. None greeted him, so he simply acknowledged their presence and continued his stoic walk through the corridors. He was clearly spending too much time away. A deep sensation of being a foreigner in his own Covert made him quicken his pace. He exited behind Nevarro’s market stands, which were just starting to exhibit their goods, and made it to his ship.

Settling himself in the cockpit, he set up the coordinates to Nirauan. He didn’t need to check the three bounty pucks he had picked up from Karga the night before upon delivery of the previous assets. He didn’t think twice about getting the three highest bounties on the table. Unsurprisingly, they were all in the Wild Space Territories. And the high price was not for no reason: those were dangerous and distant worlds on which not much information was available. And on top of that, the fuel was very expensive these days. But desperate times made him take high stake bounties, so Nirauan, and the Kaleesh mercenary who he was after, was set to be his first mission.

As it had become a habit, Din spent his time in hyperspace preparing his gear and tuning his armor. Upon arrival to the Grandilis sector he quickly set course to the second of the worlds composing the Nirauan system. This was the first time he was in Nirauan, and the vibrant green cover of the planet struck him. Even if he risked being detected, he made a couple of passes around the last known location of the asset. Din figured it would be difficult to move through the dense forest and thus needed to pinpoint the best area to look for the asset. He landed several klicks away as the jungle-like environment covered most of the surface of the planet. The puck indicated the bounty was probably hiding in a partially destroyed fortress, where he detected numerous life forms.

“Calvrilhy pirates,” Din thought. If his information was correct, they took over the ruins of the fortress when it was destroyed by Rebels.

After securing the Crest, Din followed the puck's coordinates. Crossing the jungle he arrived at the base of the fortress. He knelt behind a large tree and got out his amban rifle. Through the scope, he scouted the compound. Several pirates were keeping guard at strategic posts, probably alerted by his survey of the planet. He presumed many more should be inside. He couldn't possibly take on all of them.

"This mission is going to be worth every single credit," he thought to himself, and decided to wait for the cover of night to infiltrate and search for his bounty inside.

Din couldn't believe his luck when, upon what looked like a shift change, a Kaleesh took over the easternmost post. The puck confirmed it. It was his asset.

Covertly, he approached the nearest wall and, after firing his grappling hook, started climbing the wall. Din had nearly reached the top when he saw that his asset had turned his back to him. Jumping to the top of the wall, Din’s movements were swift as he put the Kaleesh in a headlocked and pressed his blaster to the alien's forehead.

"Don't make a sound," Din whispered in the man's ear.

Shocked, the bounty remained quiet for a couple of seconds before he started struggling against Din's hold.

"You'll never get into the compound," the bounty said.

"Don't need to; I already have what I want," he whispered back.

"I won't come with you, bounty hunter."

"I can bring you in warm… or I can bring you in cold. Prize won't change. Your choice".

Din pinned the man against a nearby wall, and cuffed his hands to his back. Looking around to make sure his actions had not alerted anyone, he unrolled his whipcord. After securing the hook to the outer wall, he used the other end to tie the man’s ankles together.

"Wait", the man said, "what the hell are you going to…"

He didn't have time to say anything else. With one strong movement the Mandalorian shoved him over the edge of the fortress. The man screamed all the way down. The line stopped the quarry barely a meter above the ground. The Mandalorian quickly climbed down the line. He needed to act fast. The bounty’s screams had alerted the rest of the men guarding the compound. When reaching the ground, he unhooked the man from the line and stored away his gear.

Din pushed the Kaleesh towards the jungle in the direction of the Crest. There was movement starting to build behind them. The beginning of a searching party, he presumed.

Remaining focused, the Mandalorian kept directing the bounty towards his ship when heard a whistling sound coming from the depths of the jungle. His HUD didn’t give any signs of humanoid presence, and he discarded the possibility of a threat. Din increased his pace nevertheless. That was until the bounty gave him a wicked smile before whistling back in the same direction. Picking up on a certain cadence in the man’s whistling put the Mandalorian on high alert. He pressed the end of his blaster to the bounty's back and encouraged the man forward.

"Enough with the noise," Din threatened.

As they continued towards the ship, the bounty suddenly looked into the shadows and whistled once again.

"I said, enough!"

But the Mandalorian barely had the time to finish his word when, from between the trees, stepped out a small globulous green creature. Standing on two long and thin legs, its eight eyes stared directly at Din. It growled menacingly as it slowly approached Din.

In a rush of adrenaline, the Mandalorian shot the creature, which caused no apparent harm, the blasts bouncing off the animal’s skin. Clearly aggravated, it quickenedits approach on Din. Through the corner of his eye, the Mandalorian saw that the Kaleesh was trying to flee using the creature's attack as distraction, but Din shot him in one leg, making him fall with a loud thud to the ground. At the same time, he hit the ground himself, pushed by the blunt force of the animal jumping on him.

Pinned by the green creature, Din managed to turn around and use his vambraces to protect himself from its large teeth. Saliva formed in the mouth of the animal. The instant it hit the Mandalorian’s flight suit, the scent of burned fabric hit him, followed by an intense pain as the acidic fluids reached his skin. The Mandalorian found himself screaming with pain at the same time as the animal sank its large claws in his arm to prevent Din from escaping. Din activated his whistling birds, and half a dozen of projectiles hit the green animal.

At first, the animal seemed to reduce his pressure on him, and Din used the opportunity to roll away from the creature. Seeing it was still alive, with no apparent intention of retreating, the Mandalorian attacked it again, now with his vibroblade in hand, and stabbed it repeatedly. But breaking the creature’s skin caused it to release a gas that took Din by surprise.

Having an extremely strong smell to it, Din instinctively activated the seal in his helmet, not before breathing a small amount of the gas. With the creature now immobile on the ground, Din got back on his feet, panting. He allowed himself a few seconds to evaluate his status, what hurt, and if any injury required immediate attention. He got distracted by the noise of other people in the jungle. The search party was getting near. They needed to move.

He went back to the Kaleesh, who was lying on his back and smiling cockily.

"You got a good dose of my Divvik's gas back there. How are you feeling?" the Kaleesh asked.

"Stand up and move," was Din's only response, but the man didn't make any effort to stand.

The Mandalorian's patience now clearly exhausted, Din bent and grabbed the man's flighsuit collar forcing him to stand and, despite the man’s limp, pushed him again in the direction of the Crest. Din felt his limbs getting heavier, pain and exhaustion suddenly invading. He thought that to be weird, since normally adrenaline should be keeping him in working condition for some time longer. But he knew they needed to get off-world, and fast. His mission was close to being completed, but Din felt like he could fall asleep right there on his feet. By the time he could see the Crest between the trees, his vision started getting blurry. Having his goal in sight motivated him to push harder despite feeling weaker with each step. The Kaleesh noticed how he was struggling and was now outwardly laughing.

"You won't make it out of this planet alive," the bounty said.

The Mandalorian stopped for a minute and searched in his belt. Bringing out a stimshot, he thrusted the syringe into his thigh and emptied its contents, hoping that it would help him with the last dozens of meters and the take-off. Without waiting for the effect of the shot to set in, he immediately pocketed the syringe and restarted the painful task of pushing his asset to the Crest.

After what seemed like an eternity to Din, they reached the ship. He pushed the bounty into the hold, making him hit the ground. With the asset’s hands still bound behind his back, the Mandalorian quickly bound his feet as well before he tumbled to reach the ladder leading to the cockpit. It took a lot of his remaining strength to climb up but he made it and dropped himself into the pilot's chair. He could notice himself starting to feel confused. He needed to start the take-off sequence, a process which he had internalized so deeply with his years of service to the point of it being automatic. But at that very moment he realized he couldn’t remember if the ion flux stabilizers needed to be activated before the main engine pre-heating and ignition command. Panicking, he started to hyperventilate. He recognized he was losing control, there was no way he'd ever forget the take off sequence which was simply muscle memory to him by that point. There was something really going on.

"Keep it together, Djarin," he whispered to himself.

Din closed his eyes and breathed calmly and deeply. He needed to regain control of his emotions. Focusing, he went through the sequence again, the engines came online as he saw the pirate search party coming out of the woods on his starboard side. Blaster fire rebounded off the Crest's hull as Din pulled the ship up, engaged the thrusters, and set course towards the atmosphere.

He felt himself dozing off. His head was pounding, and his ears rang to the point of almost not being capable of hearing the usual and reassuring humming of his ships engines. The biosensors integrated in his armor told him he was starting to be bradycardic and hypotensive. He input the coordinates back to Nevarro on his navicomputer. There was one thing he clearly knew at this point: unless the effects of whatever product he inhaled back on Nirauan miraculously got out of his system, he wouldn’t be able to work the other two bounties he was set to capture in the Wild Space Territories.

Once he hit hyperspace, he dragged himself down to the cargo hold. The Bounty was now sitting against one of the walls. He looked at Din as he stumbled down the ladder.

"How are you feeling?" the Bounty asked with a grin. "I'll admit that I'm impressed. With the amount of toxin you got, I would have bet you'd be dead by now and I would be the happy owner of a… Razor Crest is it?" He said, looking around as if admiring a new acquisition.

"Get up," the Mandalorian ordered.

Grinning, the Kaleesh looked slowly up to Din with a defiant look, with no intention of moving.

"I said, UP!" Din was screaming now. He was tired, needed to tend to himself, and this bounty was just determined to test the limits of his patience.

Upon seeing no reaction from his bounty, he grabbed him by the collar of his flight suit and forced him once more to stand up. Making the Kaleesh take a couple of steps backwards, he set the man in the carbon-freezing chamber.

"No! NO! WAIT! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" The man screamed, realizing what was about to happen.

The man, despite being bound from hands and feet, fought as hard as he could to get out of the Mandalorian's hold. Din continued to shuffle through the chamber’s controls as he pushed the man against the block. He was barely doing this by touch, his sight was getting blurrier, he could barely discern the buttons if it weren't for the colors flashing.

The man continued fighting, trying to get away from the carbonite chamber. Seeing the little effect this was having, he violently headbutted the Mandalorian. Despite being protected by the Beskar, the action didn't help the Mandalorian's pounding headache.

"YOU CAN'T PUT ME IN CARBONITE!"

With all the ringing in Din's ears he wouldn't have heard the Bounty if it wasn't for how loud he was screaming. Finally losing patience, Din grabbed the man by his neck, and looking straight into the man's eyes from behind his visor, he whispered coldly, "Watch me".

"YOU'RE GOING TO FUCKING DIE AND I WILL BE TRAPPED IN HERE, IN A SHIP ADRIFT IN SPACE, FOREVER."

Din punched the final button that activated the chamber and the bounty was finally frozen.

Once the Carbonite cloud started clearing and the chamber stopped its hissing, the gravity of the situation hit Din full force. He stumbled backwards until hitting the wall of the cargo hold and let himself slide down to a sitting position. His ears were ringing so hard it made him dizzy and nauseous. His left arm and leg started to feel numb. Letting his head rest on his knees he forced his foggy mind to reason and evaluate his situation: the bounty mentioned the name of the creature that had attacked him, but feeling increasingly confused, made it difficult to recall the name. One thing he was sure of, is that he hadn't seen or heard of it before. He also recalled the bounty talking about a toxic gas. Nerve toxin, Din reasoned based on his symptoms. He knew he could treat nerve toxins. But how?

The task of concentrating was getting harder. Growling in frustration, Din told himself to think. He knew his trade often worked with a neurotoxic species. What was it? He knew he carried treatment against their stings. Nasty little bugs. What was their name? He couldn't recall.

Not important, Din thought. Now, treatment. He knew he carried something against their stings when he worked the Outer Rim and the Wild Space. Where would he keep the shots? Time was important now, he knew this in the back of his head. Where. Concentrate on the where. The bunk. He kept his med kit in his bunk.

Get to the bunk. The idea turned around in his head, over and over again. Medkit, that was his goal. It was getting increasingly difficult to think. Was this toxin affecting him that fast? Or how long had he actually been sitting there? He tried to make his body move, get up from the ground. His left side wouldn't cooperate enough for him to stand up. Rolling himself onto his right side, he managed getting to his knees and then achieved a resemblance of verticality. Dragging his left side he aimed at getting to his bunk, supporting himself on the crates stowed on the side of the hold.

Din was now sweating profusely. The stimshot's effects were wearing out, he felt the backlash of the effects of whatever he had inhaled. Fumbling with his bunk's control panel, he opened the door and reached for his medkit, emptying its contents on the cot. For a moment, he couldn't recall what he was looking for. He continued ruffling the contents of his medkit. Shots. He was looking for a shot. Of what? He found a couple of stimshots. No, that wasn't it. He wasn't sure he knew anymore what he was looking for. He kept looking through the contents of the kit until he found a small box with vials labeled "Atropine - Kouhuns".

Kouhuns, yes. That's what the neurotoxic bugs were called. If he had a chance at surviving whatever he had inhaled, this was it. He fumbled to load a syringe with the contents of one of the vials, struggling to help himself with his barely working left hand. Din clumsily removed his left vambrace. He expected a loud noise to come from when it hit the ground, but never heard it with the overwhelming ringing of his ears. He rolled up the sleeve of his flight suit and tried injecting the counteragent intravenously without any success.

Frustrated, Din sat back and took a deep breath. He blinked hard several times, trying to clear his vision and then tried one more time. Sure that he had gotten it right that time, he injected the atropine. He never saw the syringe fall from his hand. He never felt it when he hit the ground.

#star wars #star wars fanfiction #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin #paz Vizsla #young din djarin #young paz vizsla #the armorer #bounty hunting #injury #whump #ailesswhumptober2023 #prompt 1 #day 1: poisson

22 notes · View notes