Pairings: none, and if you’re a cl*nesect shipper move tf along
Rating: Teen for heavy emotional elements, mention alluding to sexual encounters
Warnings: heavy angst, mentions of canon character deaths, losing a sibling/friend, dealing with grief, allusions to echo’s torture/imprisonment/forced body modifications
Brief summary: Echo is wondering where Fives is after he is rescued on Skako Minor.
Word count: 932
Hope is dangerous in war. So is grief. That’s an unspoken rule: don’t grieve.
As clones, it’s especially dangerous. Clones may fight for the Republic, but that’s all they are. An asset.
Echo found himself relearning this all over again. During his torture, he would dream of the 501st storming in, Rex and Fives leading the charge, Jedi general and padawan allowing for this rescue. Dreams led to hope.
And hope can destroy you faster than a blaster.
So Echo threw out hope and focused on survival.
They don’t know you’re alive.
Let them know.
That’s not hope, it’s what any soldier would do.
When blue and white came blasting in, he felt his heart soar. Rex - his captain came for him. He was accompanied by General Skywalker and this new squad in contrasting armor compared to the squad he was used to. The empty space where Fives should be wasn’t unnoticed.
It was a fight all the way to the ship.
Only once they were in hyperspace did Echo mention his twin.
“My brother?”
He didn’t even have to say the feisty ARC trooper’s name to see Rex slightly flinch then stiffen across from him. A trooper not familiar with the blonde captain would have never noticed. But Echo knew.
“Fives. Where is he?” Echo demanded when the black and red clones shifted nervously at the new energy in the cabin.
Rex took a deep breath and removed his blue jaig-eyed helmet. His eyes were far off, like he was reliving a distant, sad memory. Anakin’s hands were balled into fists next to the captain.
“Rex,” Echo pleaded harshly, “what happened?”
“He died looking out for his brothers,” Rex finally said too calmly while looking Echo in the eyes, but his breathing betrayed his true feelings. His breathing was shaky, so unlike the captain even in the worst of situations. Rex was sparing him, he realized.
Shit.
It was bad, then.
Echo didn’t press. He knew not to ask for further details. Honestly, he didn’t think he wanted to know the details. Definitely not in front of mere strangers, no matter if they helped rescue him and are technically his brothers. It just didn’t feel right to discuss something so personal in front of someone other than the 501st.
Hunter, the long-haired one, cleared his throat and motioned for his squad to follow him to allow for a little more privacy for Echo in the small cabin.
As young and as different as their batch was, the sergeant understood something of loss.
Echo was starting to feel it, all he’d loss because of the war, the Separatists, every brother, nearly every piece of his will.
Five minutes. I’ll give myself five minutes. Echo thought as this hollow pain aches through his entire being.
He felt hot tears leak from his eyes as he glared at the ceiling. His brother, his best friend. The most obnoxious, hilarious, and headstrong person he knew was just gone.
He shuddered with his next breath and tried to calm it out. There was still a war. He couldn’t fall apart now.
All of the memories with his twin came rushing in like an avalanche. Memories training with the nearly hopeless Domino squad, their first outposting on Rishi Moon, their brother 99, going to 79s and picking up a fling (or two) for the night, defending Kamino from the Separatists and becoming ARC troopers, the late night talks that clones weren’t supposed to have about the war ending and having a life outside of the GAR.
And Echo let it. He was sure no one, save for Rex, truly mourned for Fives. Fives deserved to be remembered.
He was his brother, and he knew damn well Fives stood up for every injustice he saw. He was not a quiet man and if someone was done wrong, Fives would rally behind that person. He was loving and caring, and he had a brain despite some people thinking he was only action.
Echo didn’t care about losing physical parts of himself. As soldiers, they were trained to adapt. He’d work with what he was giving.
At the moment, his pain was clawing its way out from his throat like a nasty sarlacc. He bit down hard on his bottom lip to keep from shrieking his pain into the whole galaxy.
His entire body was shaking with the force of the sobs he was holding in as his vision blurred with tears.
His five minutes to grieve were up. He took in the deepest breath he could and calmed himself down. He noticed a touch of something else calming him down after a bit.
He looked over to see compassion pouring through Anakin’s face. He was using the Force to ease some of the pain. Echo was never more grateful for an act of kindness.
When they finally landed Anaxes, Echo was ready for battle.
It didn’t feel right. It felt off. And not because he was drained from the horrors he had endured.
He no longer fit in. They had moved on without him, and rightly so.
So when Hunter offered him a place with the Bad Batch and Rex encouraged him, he felt it might be good for a fresh start.
When his new squad was asleep and he couldn’t find solace, when it was just him and hum of the Marauder zipping through hyperspace, he would find himself scratching on his metal prosthetics. If his brothers saw the Aurebesh five, they didn’t remark on it.
It seems they were all familiar with that kind of loss, too.
this is my new obsession and y'all have to deal with it!! (if y'all want to see a character-specific post or just more of a certain character lmk and i'll do it! i am for the people.)
baby yoda is a slightly misleading term, given that he's displayed advanced mobility, thinking, planning, other milestones of physical and psychological development. therefore, I suggest that we call him The Yoddler
