for @commandercodyweek day one: bonds. i’ve gone with the subprompt “cody bonding with his brothers”. title is mando’a for ‘leave, depart, exit’
summary: They’ve been preparing for this all their lives, this parting. Every moment has been leading them here, to this night, their first victory. But his brothers are all he knows. | also on AO3
warnings: swearing, alcohol (but v mild)
-
The white tiles are cool under his bare feet, but it’s not why he shivers. Everything has a surreal, dreamlike quality to it, even though to all intents and purposes, Kamino looks as it always has. Deep in the night like this the lights are turned down low, just enough to see by as they stumble out of their pods and huddle, giggling, in the corner of the barracks. Someone shushes the group while snorting a laugh, someone else pushes them and yet another brother squirms, yelling in a whisper that something tickled. Maybe it’s not Kamino that has changed, but his place in it. The thought makes goosebumps prickle all over his skin.
Kote presses up against the locker he has commandeered and looks up at the rows of closed pods, at the ceiling, so high up. He feels like he’s floating, dizzy, even though Wolffe’s arm is heavy round his shoulders and Bly’s legs are draped obnoxiously over his knees. Fil’s head is pillowed against his shins and Blitz is on Wolffe’s other side, gesticulating wildly as he talks. It seems impossible that this is his last night in this room, in these halls, on this planet, despite the alien heft of the medal on his chest, where it has been burning a brand into his skin through armour and cloth all evening, ever since his trainer pinned it there and smiled razor sharp at each of them. In the moment, that seemed like the most impossible thing of all.
Bly scoffs something in his ear and leans over, their medals clinking where their sleep clothes brush. They’d laughed at him for pinning it back on the wrong side earlier, and he’d just shrugged and laughed with them, saying he’d moved it over to make room for all the others he’s going to win out there. It’s a strange thought, Bly fighting on campaigns Kote will never see, other brothers defending his six. They won’t argue that his strategy is too reckless or bicker over the placement of his troops, will just snap to attention and carry out his orders as Captains ought. The thought makes something ache in the centre of his chest.
“- Kote will back me up,” Wolffe is saying, and Kote jolts when he sticks his fist into his ribs. “Won’t you?”
“What?” He asks, smirking when Wolffe rolls his eyes. “If this is about that Holonet star then I already told you -“
Wolffe jams his fingers back into Kote’s side, harder this time, making him wheeze through a laugh.
“No. Fuck you, I was askin’ if you agree that Nala Se looks like the back end of a Rancor.”
Kote grins, tipping his head back so he can savour Wolffe’s embarrassed scowl. He’s gonna miss causing that every day.
“Mm,” he says, pretending to roll the thought through his head. “Like she’s smelt one, maybe.”
Bly shifts and leans across him so that he can poke at Wolffe with his foot. “Why you thinkin’ ‘bout her anyway? This time tomorrow we’re never gonna have to see her again.”
The thought makes Kote’s stomach clench, an odd mixture of excitement and fear curdling inside him. He knows how to break down his emotions, to identify and compartmentalise and sort them before putting them aside, tools to be utilised when necessary and flaws to be inhibited when not. They all know the cautions off by heart; an untidy mind is weakness. An untidy mind is death. All them have stood in solitary at some point repeating the words when they’ve let their feelings get the better of them.
Usually, he finds that speaking the emotions and admitting they’re there is enough to dispel them. His trainers label him level-headed. His brothers call him underhanded, or other much less complimentary things. He’ll take either. But today, just the knowing can’t take his feelings away. They’ve been preparing for this all their lives, this parting. Every moment has been leading them here, to this night, their first victory. But his brothers are all he knows. It sours the sweetness, turning it bitter, like the little green fruits they’d found and tried eating on survival training.
“More’s the pity,” Wheeler says, where he’s similarly buried under a pile of brothers. “I wanna show her. Wanna be the cause of that look when I win my first battle and make her eat her kriffing words.”
The rest of his squad raggedly cheer their approval from various places throughout the huddle. Their medals are pinned front and centre, unmissable, snatched from the jaws of defeat.
“I could drink to that,” Fil says, his hands nestled behind his head. “Speakin’ of, where the hells is Fox? Thought you guys said he’d got a contraband contact.”
“He’ll be here,” Ponds insists, from where he’s laid out across some of the seating on his belly, lazily pillowing his face in his hands. “S’not exactly easy to arrange a drop.”
“You don’t think he’s gotten caught, d’you?” Wolffe says, clearly gleeful at the thought.
Kote snorts. “More likely he’s gotten lost.”
“Oi, watch your mouth,” Ponds says, but he’s smirking, and there’s no heat in it.
“Hey, you weren’t in that scouting simulation with him last week. He took us in a circle round the rendezvous three times, Ponds. They’re gonna have to put a tracker on him before letting him loose in a Venator.”
Abruptly, the door at the end of the barracks whooshes open, bathing them in sterile light. They all freeze and fall silent, even though there’s not a hope in hell that any passing Sargeant won’t see them crammed across the floor like protein cubes in a packet.
“Just for that, Kote, you’re not getting any of this.”
They breathe out collectively when Fox ducks into the room, a wrapped package under one arm. Kote feels Wolffe’s arm round his shoulder go slack, and leans out of his grip to flip his brother off.
“Can’t blame me for telling the truth, vod.”
Fox snorts and punches the door controls to seal them back into relative darkness, before picking his way over to the group and crawling into their midst.
“Did you get it?” Bly asks, voice hushed, eyes fixed on the lumpy parcel.
“Course I did,” Fox rips off the paper with a flourish and holds up a bottle of spirit, the low lights catching the amber liquid inside and making it glow orange. “Dunno what it’s called, but apparently it’s strong.”
A giddy silence settles over them, bated as Fox breaks the seal and unscrews the lid. They look at each other across the circle, sitting on a precipice. Kote’s heart feels like it’s lodged in his throat.
“So, who gets to drink first?” Ponds says from his great height, his voice reverent.
There’s another pause as they all consider.
“I think...Kote should do it.” Blitz pipes up, then shrugs when everyone turns to look. “He got the highest graduating score. Seems only fair.”
Kote feels heat rise in his face, opening his mouth to protest, but Fox sighs, mouth curling into a smirk.
“Well, I s’pose I can’t argue with that.”
He passes the bottle over, and Kote numbly takes it, his hands shaking against the glass. He feels the weight of it, looking out across his brothers, his vode, batchmates and squadmates all piled and mixed in around him. Tomorrow they will be spread thin across the galaxy, on planets and ships they have only ever seen in their dreams. For all their training, it’s almost impossible that they’ll ever be all together like this in the same room again. His throat tightens.
“Well?” Fil scoffs, poking Kote’s shin. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
This is a rite of passage for nat-borns, he knows, an ascension to adulthood. It’s only fitting to share it here, on the very edge of their first battlefield. He brings the bottle to his lips, holding the moment in his mind.
