Work Text:
Voss had looked like a rather hospitable planet at first glance, especially when one was fresh from Belsavis. Not to mention, with a fresh murderer in tow. Nothing too specific against Skadge, but he kept rubbing the crew the wrong way. Which was hard to work with at the best of times, and also meant that it was a small relief that he was gone on an errand at the moment. Something about inverting a backstabbing Hutt employer? The Bounty Hunter hadn’t ended up listening very closely after Skadge had delved into the crude details of his premeditated murder.
For now, that was not here nor there. He was currently busy following a Republic General into the Nightmare Lands. Something which was proving to be the first challenging part of this never ending chase. There was just something decidedly sinister about the atmosphere he was forced to trek through. As if the air around him had malicious intentions.
“You knoooow, if you’re not feeling too good we can hang this all up and go have a few drinks, yeah?” Gault hovers at the edge of his vision, shifting his weight; waiting, “Doesn’t look like this target of yours is going anywhere farther away from you than she already manages to be.”
The Bounty Hunter scans his vitals for the umpteenth time, mouth an imperceptible scowl, “Is that an implication at my inability?”
“What? No! I would never .” Gault acquiesces immediately with a self serving smile. The Bounty Hunter shakes his head, hoping to clear his head from whatever foggy state it has entered since they had come here.
“Of course. You’d never. ” He responds to Gault while resuming his trek. It appeared all his advanced kolto tech wasn’t going to help him here with this mysterious Nightmare Land mysticism bullshit.
“Good to see you know me well enough not to doubt.” Gault adds in unhelpfully, keeping pace leisurely. The devoronian didn’t seem affected at all by whatever was in the air, something the Bounty Hunter found entirely unfair. Even if he would never admit how relieved he was that this repugnant atmosphere wasn’t hurting his friends like it seemed to be hurting him.
It’s a lot of weaving to avoid the giant crystalline horrors wandering about. Even more when the horrible rocky terrain was taken into account. There’s many treacherous slopes proving too dangerous to climb down safely. The Bounty Hunter could only imagine how Torian would react if he found out he’d slipped down a slope and incapacitated himself that way. Especially after he’d argued with Torian about leaving him back at the ship to recover from the kidnapping incident. Some wounds from it had persisted; and the Bounty Hunter would know, he was the designated doctor on board after all. He’d done his best to get Torian back into action, guilt from letting his, uhhh, Cy’are(?) get taken in the first place sticking close by. Point of all this being, Torian was unhappy at being left behind and would be much more so if he came back injured.
Keeping all this in mind, he’s extra careful to not get into any more trouble than his profession normally dragged him into. Besides, Gault would appreciate the lack of life threatening situations. Gault already seemed a little bit more grateful.
Figures he’d manage to find trouble anyway. Or did trouble find him? Regardless, he pulls out his two pistols and jumpstarts his kolto tech. Already using a quick scan to heal Gault who’d gotten a few unlucky hits. Though Gault quickly takes down the offending shooter with a precise shot. He decides to join in on the damage, spinning his blasters and settling them into a crossed position, ready to unload a whole barrage. It manages to take down one, and the Hunter stuns the enemy closest to him afterwards, ducking to apply kolto to his own wounds. He glances at Gault, good to see he’s still doing fine; he’s surprisingly scary with a blaster. The Hunter would’ve never guessed it himself.
“Think I knocked ‘em crosseyed.” Gault murmurs with a pleased and awed tone. The Bounty Hunter rolls his eyes but gives his companion another round of kolto, ducking to dodge stray blaster fire.
They’re running out of ground to retreat to, the Hunter notices far too late. Staring dubiously at the unpleasant height difference between them and the ground below. Well, as long as they didn’t get forced back much more. He’s far too drained from the vile surroundings to deal with any extra wounds that didn’t relate to this fight. The twisted Voss and Gormak in front of them don’t relent, and the Hunter vents some heat from his near scorching pistols while keeping an eye on Gault’s physical health. Though he’ll note that he’s not the most reliable, eyes crossing a few seconds at a time. Damn evil magic land.
One of the enemies yells something in a foreign language and the Hunter curses colorfully as he shakily backs up from an explosive charge. Of course there’s nowhere to back up to and the impact knocks him clean off the edge. The fall being much shorter than he thought it’d be, giving him enough time to complain before the impact knocks the thought out of him. There’s a few seconds of processing before he unsteadily concludes that it hurt a lot less than he thought it would. Now just to get himself healed and back into the fight. Something…much easier said than done. Sitting up makes his world spin and he can barely read anything on his vitals monitor, blindly pressing some controls to get something started. Safe to say it doesn’t really work.
Someone vaguely red and beige slides down a less steeper angle of the cliff. The Bounty Hunter quickly concludes it is Gault and not an enemy, which draws a breath of relief from him.
“Iz’er anyone left?” The Hunter slurs, one pistol far off somewhere, another resting against his forehead, the now cool durasteel feeling pleasant against his headache.
“Huh? Nah, your good buddy Gault took care of them.” The devoronian seems distracted. It reminds the Bounty Hunter of a few unpleasant truths. One, Gault was a mean, amoral opportunist. Two, the Hunter was worth 10 million credits. Three, he was in no condition to fight Gault if it came to it.
He slumps his shoulders, leveling something that must’ve come off as a pathetic expression at Gault, fingers tightening around his one remaining blaster. He hoped, somewhere past all his paranoia he still really hoped camaraderie would deter Gault.
“I know I’m rather handsome, but I didn’t expect you to admit it so openly with your staring.” Gault cuts into his thoughts, his urge for them to hurry up none too subtle.
The Hunter processes, holsters his blaster while dazedly glancing back down at his still unreadable vitals monitor and with all the smoothness he can muster says, “I don’t think I can walk.”
Gault throws up his arms, “Next time you plan on doing something like this; do us both a favor and don’t bring me along.”
As Gault frustratedly kicks his second blaster back to him the Bounty Hunter tries to piece his messy thoughts back into something understandable. Uh, which planet was he on again..?
“I’m calling Torian.” Gault declares, fishing for his holocomm.
There’s a faint crackle and then the Hunter recognizes Torian’s figure, despite how blurry he came out as.
“—situation? What do you mean situation?!”
Gault glances down at him blankly staring a hole into the ground.
“Err, well our magnanimous leader appears to have taken a rough fall.” Gault sounds almost amused, if one ignored his persistent undertone of frustration.
“Is he alright? Where are you two?” Some shuffling travels through the comm and Mako can be distantly heard telling him to calm down offscreen.
“Well, he seems mostly fine. Don’t know about the head injury though, those can turn out to be nasty.” Gault shrugs casually and Torian says something the Hunter doesn’t catch. Probably something in Mando’a.
“—won’t work. Chill kid, there’s a nearby point of elevation that should work.”
The Bounty Hunter massages his temples in some last ditch effort of alleviating his headache.
“You’re doubting me? Why I’m offended! I’m always prepared with an exit strategy, this happens to be one.”
“We’ll be there—just keep him alive.”
Gault closes the transmission and crouches down to his level. A moment later managing to get some kolto running through him, via his various tech.
“Sheesh, why do you have it set up to be so complicated.” Gault pulls him up to stand and nods to himself when he doesn’t immediately fall over. The kolto was helping a lot already.
“It really isn’t.” The Hunter’s voice comes out more hoarse than it normally was, which was honestly quite impressive in Gault’s opinion.
The Hunter feels his arm be guided to leverage support from Gault, with it resting around his neck. And beyond some minor stumbling periodically, they manage to keep good pace, headed to the coordinates Gault had given to the rest of the crew.
A silence settles around them, much like how it always did when they were out on the prowl. The Hunter proved to be a silent work partner, saving the dialogue for private moments or trying to upkeep a healthy amount of snark with select employers.
With a resigned sigh, the Hunter asks, “10 mil creds too little for you now?”
“Hardly! 10 million credits is the dream.” Gault keeps his gaze trained forward, “But I really don’t want to deal with any more vengeful Mandalorians. Trust me, they don’t know the meaning of giving up or mercy. It’s real annoying.”
The Bounty Hunter hums, audibly pleased, “You might just be right about that.”
The rest of the trek is done in silence and after a bit he has to wonder where Gault is leading him. Paranoia still attempting to be vigilant. Though it’s quickly dispatched after he feels more than sees his ship touchdown near to their location.
“Where the hell did you find a spot that supports a safe landing?” He squints at where the ship has landed.
“Come on, not you too, don’t you guys ever plan escape routes in advance?” Gault creates space between himself and the Bounty Hunter, spotting a familiar figure in the distance approaching.
“To this degree? Definitely not.” He responds to Gault honestly, taking time to administer more kolto now that his vision had settled. This headache was really killing him and he was still feeling far too loopy to be comfortable.
He continues to fine tune the various kolto apparatus, ready to offer an explanation to the figure approaching him rapidly; he knew it had to be Torian. However he’s rapidly pulled into the most gentle hug he’s ever had.
“..Torian?” The Hunter awkwardly settles his hands to reciprocate the hug. It was still decidedly new for him. Which has him scrambling for an appropriate thing to say, “Ah, uhm, nice of you to…not break my ribs further?”
Torian huffs with amusement and Gault narrows his eyes at them from afar.
“We really gotta work on your compliments.” Gault finally says and Torian creates distance between them so he can better check for injuries.
“I’ll definitely agree.” Torian responds evenly, still amused.
“Real tough, guys, ganging up and kicking someone down when they’re already down.” The Hunter vaguely gestures an unimpressed shoo motion. Torian gives him a few pats on the shoulder for it, keeping a straight face.
“Did you two get close to getting the target by the way?” Torian asks offhandedly, his hand still resting on the Hunter’s shoulder. Who perks up at the mention of the target he’d forgotten until now. It was the Republic General what’s-her-face.
Gault waves dismissedly, “Figuring her, she might as well be in the deep reaches of unknown space by now.”
“That bad?” Torian asks sympathetically, meanwhile the Hunter feels the urgency of his task return to him. Darth Tormen had made his modus operandi more than clear, and failure was far from acceptable in it.
“Not if I can help it. I am not missing an opportunity to introduce her to my blaster.” The Hunter shakes his head in a resigned manner, moving to head back where he had come from. His kolto tech would keep him alive long enough to do this…probably?
“We’re not doing that.” Torian appears to disagree and this time none too gently scoops him up. It prompts a moment of processing for the Hunter, who gives Torian a look while adjusting his legs:
“ Huh . This is normally my job.” He says dumbly.
Torian shrugs, or well does as much as he can, “First time for everything? But you’re going to get yourself killed going back out there.”
The Hunter makes a so-so gesture, “Ehhh, I’ll give it 50/50.”
Torian is unimpressed, “You look like osik . I’d be surprised if you had a 10/90 chance of surviving.”
“Are you underestimating me Torian?” He challenges, passively noting the cool feel of Torian’s, what was the word again? Beskar’gam?
“Ha! I wouldn’t dare. I learn from my mistakes.” The ship ramp draws closer when the Bounty Hunter lies his head to lean against Torian’s armor, humming when the cool touch appears to chill his inflamed head. He says as much, instead of whatever else he had lined up in his head.
“How is he?” Mako sounds worried from the ship ramp and turns to Gault, seeing Torian and the Hunter headed for the ship medbay.
“Fine enough.”
Mako gives him an incredulous look a moment later, thinking, “So, you actually like brought him back?”
“Paranoia must run in the family.” Gault notes with no real fervor and then chooses to clear up his view, “But it’s really not worth it.”
Mako who’s gone pleasantly red at the earlier implication seems to gain back her confident tone and says, “Oh come now, just admit he’s been a better influence on you than you’ve been a bad influence on him.”
Gault turns to her sharply, “Oh, no, no, no. Did you see the scam I had him run just a few days ago?”
“Yes!” She cries indignantly at the mention, ignoring that she’s feeding his point, “He’s still feeling guilty about that!”
“But we are making good money on that.”
“That’s beside the point!”
“But should it be?”
“Yes!!”
“Hey, can you come help, Mako?” Torian interrupts, looking a little sheepish.
“Oh..sure.” She follows him, leaving Gault alone.
“Well, time for that drink I’ve been craving.” Gault heads to raid their storage of alcohol.
“You can work this stuff better than me.” Torian admits to Mako. He was better at treating wounds on sight.
“I bet you’re glad you taught me now.” She tells the Hunter, using the apparatus to assess any head injuries he’d sustained.
“I wouldn’t have regretted it at any point. And I didn’t have to teach you much anyway, you’re a natural.” He responds and she smiles in turn.
“Oh! And Blizz fixed the equipment, said he added a few upgrades too.” She says as she sees Blizz checking out the commotion. The Hunter gives the jawa a small headpat when he’s in range.
“Thank you Blizz.” He gives Blizz a genuine smile, “But that reminds me. I’m going to have a talk with whoever broke it when I find them.”
No one says anything to that.
Blizz scampers off to finish with something after seeing that his Boss was alright and Mako fidgets by the doorway.
She looks at Torian sitting next to the Hunter, “Reunions are great and all…but can you guys not…you know, do, it..uh—on the ship..?”
The two men process her words when Gault chips in from upstairs: “Some of us don’t want to hear Torian through the walls.”
Recognition lights up in the Bounty Hunter first and he gives Torian an incredibly amused expression. The latter is more than a little flushed as he acknowledges the meaning.
“We’ll be considerate and wait then.”
Mako stands awkwardly, looking down at the floor, “Oh would you look at that—Skadge is calling, gotta go..!” She sprints.
The Bounty Hunter shakes his head fondly, lacing his fingers with Torian a moment later. He has to wonder when coming back to the ship felt like coming back home.