Modern AU kid Domino Squad! Cutup (back left), Hevy (back right), Fives (front left), Droidbait (front middle), Echo (front right). I felt the need to make them all look different since quintuplets would be a bit out of place in a modern AU, so Cutup, Hevy, and Droidbait are adopted.
Okay, I know it's been a few weeks, but I promise I'm still here and still working on Raising Dominoes. Life's just been super busy and I had to put in extra hours at the lab these past few weekends.
Anyways, here is Chapter 11 - Memories. And on a Saturday, not a Sunday! :)
Prologue: 00 Previous chapter: 10
Summary: Rex battles guilt and Echo recalls the events leading up to his hospitalization.
CW: Child abuse, death, death of children, guilt, missing limbs, hospitals, explosions. Heed the warnings on this one, friends. It's not a fun time for the boys.
Chapter 11 - Memories
Rex woke from an uncomfortable sleep as the first rays of sunlight began to illuminate the hospital room. He had not had the heart to separate the twins while they were sleeping, so he had hunkered down in the chair by the boy’s bedside for the night. Now his neck and back ached and he had pins and needles in his legs.
A quick look at the boys and he could see they were still sleeping. In the night they had drifted away from each other. Fives was now sprawled out on the bed, lying on his stomach like a starfish, leaving Echo a tiny sliver of space, and even that was invaded by Fives’s elbow.
Rex smiled to himself and gently moved Fives’s arm to his side so the boy would not accidentally take out one of his brother’s eyes. Luckily the kid was out cold and did not stir at his touch.
Now that he was up, Rex stretched and lazily strolled across the room to the window. Cody would have loved the view. The sun peaked between skyscrapers, casting the streets below in harsh shadows and warm light. From the way the whole city was bathed in orange it looked like a mild autumn morning despite the frigid temperatures Rex knew were on the other side of the glass.
He did not know how long he stood there, staring out the window and watching the cars march by in the lines of morning traffic like ants. He let his mind wander freely, enjoying the peaceful quiet of dawn. His brain had been working in overdrive constantly the past four days, always worried or planning. It felt nice to turn it off for a few seconds, doing a hard reboot and getting himself back on track.
Eventually the sound of the door opening caught Rex’s attention. Kix nodded to him from the doorway and strode over to the bed to change out Echo’s med bag.
“Hey,” Rex called softly, abandoning his post by the window and moving to stand beside the doctor. “Shouldn’t you be at home? It’s Saturday.”
Kix shrugged, focused on checking up on Echo, “I guess I picked up an extra shift.”
“What about Dogma and Tup?”
“Jesse’s got them,” Kix shrugged again, his tone nonchalant. He scrawled something quickly on his clipboard and then turned to Rex and nodded to the door, “Let’s talk outside.”
Rex followed Kix outside Echo’s room without complaint, and sat when Kix motioned to a bench in the hallway.
Kix sat next to him, sighing heavily, and running a hand through his intricate buzzcut, “Echo’s doing really well. Even better since you and Fives arrived.”
Rex nodded.
“If everything continues to go well, we should be able to discharge him this Wednesday. We have to ween him off the meds and make sure he won’t be in too much pain when you take him home. At this point, that’s really all he’s here for. The medication, sterile environment, and so that we can monitor the healing process.”
“So, he’s going to be okay?”
Kix smiled, leaning back, and resting his head against the wall, “That’s one resilient kid you got, Rex. It’ll take time, but he’ll be alright.”
“Good…” Rex trailed off his mind already whizzing over a million different questions. What if he was not? What if he healed physically, but could not mentally or emotionally? What if he hated him? What if he’d never be able to gain the kid’s trust? What if-
“Rex,” Kix laid a hand on Rex’s violently bouncing knee, and Rex instinctively jerked away from the touch. Kix frowned, retracting his arm, “More importantly, are you going to be alright?”
“‘More importantly?’” Rex scoffed. He turned his head away from Kix, choosing to focus on the checkered floor pattern instead. Echo was the one in the hospital, not him.
“Yeah, ‘more importantly,’” Kix hunched over, bracing his elbows on his knees before lowering his voice and continuing, “Listen to me, Rex. I don’t know a lot about what those boys have gone through, but if it’s anything half as bad as my boys—and I’m confident it’s worse—you’re going to need to be strong for them.”
Kix’s eyes flicked over to Rex to ensure his friend was still paying attention, “You’re going to have to show them they can trust you over and over and over again. And once you think they finally do, you’re going to do something that’s going to mess it all up. You’re going to have to start from square one.”
Rex was about to interject, but Kix held up a hand, “Listen, I’m telling you this because I want you to be prepared. I want this to end well. For that to happen, you need to show them how to be strong and learn to trust again. You won’t be able to do that if you let yourself get overwhelmed.”
“I-” Rex stuttered, voice caught in his throat, leg bouncing erratically again. He shook his head as if to shake unpleasant thoughts from his mind.
“Please don’t live in the past, Rex. Please. I don’t want that for you, and I don’t want that for your boys.”
Rex turned to Kix, eyes full of desperation, “How? How can I not live in the past? Look at what she did to them! Look at what I did to them! I should have been there. If I had been there-”
Rex broke off, hands trembling in his lap, a pained smile stretching across his face.
“You have to understand it’s not your fault. I know that’s hard, but what happened to them is not your fault. It’s not.”
Kix paused for a second, letting Rex meet his eyes before continuing, “What will happen to them will be. So, let’s make sure that it’s your fault that they smile. That they laugh and play and miss you when you’re gone. Make sure it’s your fault they’re happy.”
Rex shook his head, “And if I can’t?”
“You can. I know you can. And Cody and I will always be here to help, okay?”
Rex shrugged.
Kix nudged him in the arm, a slight smile spreading up the corners of his mouth, “Heck, even Jesse wants to help out. He’s been complaining that he’s the only one that hasn’t met them yet.”
Rex let out a clipped chuckle at the idea of his twins meeting Kix’s younger brother, “Yeah, okay.”
Echo woke to an aching pain coursing through his body and a familiar white light as he blinked himself awake. He must have overdone it during training yesterday. Must have hit his head too with the way it pounded.
He could feel the warmth of Fives’s body next to his left side just like every morning, but the space on the cot to his right was cold and empty. Where was Droidbait?
Echo reached out to feel for his younger brother but retracted his arm when all he found was a fistful of air.
Gone.
The world pitched around Echo. He blinked trying to block out the blinding light and sinking feeling in his gut and focus. He felt sluggish and fuzzy like he had been sedated, but he could not remember doing anything wrong. No, if he had done something bad, he would be in isolation. It would be cold and dark, and Fives would not be beside him.
Then Droidbait must have been in isolation. What could his youngest brother have done? Why could he not remember?
His head, right. His head. He must have hit his head.
Echo reached over to Fives, about to shake his twin awake when he stopped, pulling back his arm as if it had been burned.
Something was not right.
The light was slowly turning from the intense white to a warm orange as his eyes adjusted. It looked like sunlight. But that could not be right. There were no windows in their room, just a single exposed bulb that’s harsh light reflected on the white floors and walls.
No. This was wrong.
Echo tried to sit up, tried to look for Droidbait, Hevy and Cutup as his eyes gradually focused on the room around him. Tried to make sense of the bed he was on and the machines surrounding him.
He could not. Could not sit up. Could not see his brothers.
Then he could not stop himself from remembering.
Remembering Hevy’s plan.
They were going to escape. Going to climb over the wall during their morning drills. He had thought it was a bad idea. Mom told them not to go near the citadel walls. She had warned them bad things would happen. Cutup said she was probably lying. He had said she would not be watching. Echo did not agree.
She was always watching.
Droidbait was scared. He had said over and over that he did not want to go. That he was afraid. That they would not make it over the wall. That she would find them even if they did.
As soon as the drill started Hevy had grabbed him. Dragged their youngest brother after him. Cutup had followed just behind, leaving Echo to wake up Fives.
Fives never woke to the alarm. Echo thought the flashing red lights and the incessant ringing would have been enough to wake a dead man, but Fives never so much as stirred. Echo had to shake him.
Fives had not been sure about Hevy’s plan either. He had said that even if they cleared the wall and made it down to the other side, what would they do next? Where would they go? But when the time came, he was on board. If Hevy and Cutup and Droidbait were doing it, so was he.
If Fives was doing it, so was Echo.
They had run down the hall and out through the normally bolted shut doors. The doors outside only opened during morning drill. Echo knew. This had not been the first time they had tried to escape.
By the time he and Fives had made it out into the yard, his adopted brothers were already scaling the wall. Cutup was nearly at the top and Hevy was helping Droidbait a few feet below.
No one had stopped them.
Fives ran to the wall. Echo followed.
They were doing this now.
No turning back.
About halfway up Echo heard the first explosion. He heard Droidbait screaming Cutup’s name. His voice had been laden with fear and grief. He heard Hevy yelling at Droidbait, begging him not to move. He heard Fives whimper quietly next to him.
When Echo pulled himself up onto the top of the wall he saw Hevy crouched next to Droidbait’s foot. He saw his youngest brother’s eyes wide with terror, staring at the place where the explosion had been. He saw the pile of rubble. He saw Cutup’s eyes staring blankly up at the sky from under the settling dust.
Hevy had turned to him and Fives and moved aside so they could see the dark olive cylinder resting under Droidbait’s foot. Droidbait stared at the rubble, repeating Cutup’s name over and over, his voice hollow and quiet.
Hevy had hesitated looking from their baby brother’s foot to his lost expression before turning back to the twins.
“You take him and you go,” Hevy had ordered.
Echo watched as he yanked the mine out from under Droidbait’s foot and curled his body over it in one fluid motion. He had been trying to stop the explosion from harming anyone but himself.
It had not worked.
Hevy was blown back towards the twins, a mess of blood and flesh. Droidbait was pushed backwards from the force and teetered on the edge of the wall.
Fives screamed and rushed forwards, reaching out a hand.
He had not been fast enough.
Droidbait fell.
Echo remembered the sound it made when his little brother hit the ground.
He doubted he would ever forget.
Echo did not remember much after that. He must have stepped on one of the mines as well, considering the state of his body. He looked over at his brother, making sure his brother really was as unharmed as he had seemed the day before.
Fives seemed fine, and Echo closed his eyes again to block out the too bright light before they flew open in surprise as the door to his room creaked open.
That man was standing there, the one who had brought Fives. The one named Rex. He looked like the other one—Cody—but with shorter blond hair instead of the longer dark curls that matched him and his brother.
Cody had come a lot to visit. Echo barely remembered much from the past few days, but it seemed every time he woke, he had been there, sitting at his bedside, quietly reading a book of some sort. He had thought Cody was his dad at first. It made sense, they looked just like each other, and why else would anyone take an interest in him.
When Echo had asked, Cody had smiled and said that his dad was taking care of Fives, that he was his uncle, that his dad’s name was Rex.
Rex.
His dad.
The guy had seemed nice enough yesterday, but Echo knew better than to believe his charade. Besides, Echo did not want a dad. He wanted his brothers back.
Echo must have let his face show too much disgust when Rex came into his view, as the man quickly rushed to his side, “Are you okay?”
Echo narrowed his eyes. Rex sounded like Fives any time Echo or one of their other brothers got hurt during drills. His voice was soft and gentle, even caring, and Echo was taken aback. It sounded genuine.
“Fine,” Echo mumbled, voice scratchy.
The man hovered awkwardly by the side of the bed for another moment before nodding and sitting slowly in the chair, “Your brother’s still sleeping, huh?”
Echo nodded, waiting for the command to wake his twin and rob him of a few more precious minutes of sleep.
It did not come.
Instead, Rex passed a small book to Echo, and pressed a finger to his lips, “We’ll have to be quiet, then.”
Echo watched as Rex took out a book of his own and flipped to a page in the middle, his head bowed as he read silently. The boy looked down at the book clutched in his hand. It appeared to be some sort of fiction book based on the colorful cover.
Echo snuck a glance at the blond man. He was still engrossed in his novel. The boy cautiously opened to the first page, chancing another look at Rex. Just because he was handed the book did not mean he was allowed to read it. The blond man looked up at the sound of the page crinkling, met his gaze for half a second, flashed a quick smile, and then went back to reading.
Echo followed suit.
Maybe his dad was not so bad.
Just maybe.
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