Let me care about you - Wolviecat - Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Day 13 of the Febuwhump, "Forced to hurt a loved one".
Even with Hunter’s enhanced senses, it took way too long to notice and understand. The air in the Marauder never was exactly fresh, with five grown men squeezed into space built to house maybe three, long missions back to back without a chance to at least air out their armor, constantly failing sonic shower and the relationship some of them had to personal hygiene. Hunter would end up with constant overstimulation headaches if he hadn’t learned how to filter most of it out.
But this was new - a strange, sickly sweet smell, that mixed with the usual stench of sweat. New for their ship, at least. He remembered it from the battles, when they’d got stuck without supplies, when bacta and antibiotics had to be rationed for those who still had a shot at living. All of them had several scars, uglier that was normal in the more civilized times. But things like that needed time to set in. The last mission they were on was too short and too recent for an infection to develop far enough, so unless someone decided to ignore an injury from two, three missions back…
Unless. He could just ignore that word and start figuring out which one of the four di’kune it was. His credits were on Wrecker and his if there wasn’t an explosion, it doesn’t count as an injury atitude, but they all had their own reasons, absent-mindedness or pride or lack of self-preservation. Kriff, it wasn’t like was never guilty of the same.
He breathed in, trying to push away all the other smells and focus on just that one. It filled his nose, sticking to the back of his throat - rotting meat, infection, fever. He followed it through the ship, to their small galley. The air seemed to be filled with it, strong enough to make him gag.
“Echo?”
He looked up from the data pad he was reading, and smiled. It was just a little strained. He looked sick, but he looked sick from the day he had been saved from the Tech Union. Skinny, the tan skin all clones shared overcast with gray, paper-thin and almost translucent, veins visible in places, shadows under his eyes looking more like bruises no matter if he slept or not. His hair finally started to grow in, and it helped a bit, making Echo look a little less like a lab experiment the Union made him into. But he was far from healthy.
“You are hurt,” he said, not even trying to mask it as a question. He could hear Echo’s heartbeat and breathing picking up at his words - it was already elevated when he came in, but now, it went straight to panicky.
He shook his head. “I’m fi…”
“No.” Echo flinched. Hunter made sure his next words came out less like a bark. “Please, just… don’t lie to me.” He sat next to him, looking at the way his living arm was shaking, at the droplets of sweat soaking into the collar of his blacks. “I know you are in pain, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
Echo bowed his head, teeth worrying a line into his cracked lower lip before slowly nodding. He reached for the socket around his right arm, clicking the neural connection locks open and sliding the whole scomp extension off.
The skin on the stump underneath was even paler than the rest of Echo where it wasn’t red and scraped, ringed with bruises where the socket was digging into it. He held it gingerly up, looking almost ashamed. “I was trying to get it off sometimes, but I couldn’t get it back on after…” he mumbled: “I think it swelled up. Didn’t want to bother you with it.” Hunter bit back everything he wanted to say, even if something hurt was trying to climb out of his mouth. He needed to focus on Echo and what was hurting him.
“Okay,” he said, voice as level as he managed. “We can find some bacta and patch you up a little before we get back to Kamino and find you a proper medic. But that thing stays off for now.”
Echo nodded. Got up.
Someone would maybe miss his bit off groan and the way his hand clenched white-knuckled on the chair’s headrest. Hunter didn’t. He noticed the pain in Echo’s face with every step. Still, he felt like kicking himself. He was supposed to know, he was supposed to understand that the injury to his arm wasn’t big enough to be responsible for the smell. What else was his point?
He grabbed Echo under his shoulder, ignoring the way he stiffened against him. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Tech’s bed. It was the closest, and relatively cleanest. He would have to apologize for the ruined blanket later.
The damage was visible even before he could even get Echo’s prosthesis off - skin blistered where it met the mechanical parts, red and puffy around the ports connecting his nerves to the data cables. Hunter wasn’t an engineer, and he wasn’t a medic either, but he was sure it could be done much better. If only someone had seen Echo as more than a subject and a source of information.
He didn’t want to think about Wat Tambor right now.
“How do I get them off?”
Echo just shook his head.
“Please, Echo, just work with me.” There was a line of buttons on the side of the thigh socket, and he pressed one of them. The prosthesis seemed to loosen a little, but Echo whimpered, clenching his fingers in the blanket. “Is something wrong?” Hunter asked, hands shaking above the buttons: “Have I done something?” Echo shook his head again, eyes screwed shut.
“No, just… just leave it.”
“Leave it? Echo…”
“Leave it.” He tried to make it an order, pain mixing with the clear words of an ARC trooper. “What if we get attacked? I’m already an arm down, I would be useless if I would lose my legs too.” His breathing hitched. “I can’t be useless.”
“Echo…”
“I can’t be useless. Clones have a purpose, and if they lose it…”
Hunter hugged him, sharp edges of ribs and the implants on Echo’s back digging into his arms, tight enough to stop the words tumbling from Echo’s mouth. Forehead pressed into his.
“You have a purpose,” he said, trying to keep the anger he felt out of his voice. Anger at Wat Tambor, at the Kaminoans, at their trainers. At himself. “This doesn’t change it.” He pulled back so he could see Echo’s face better. “If you want, I’ll stop. But it will get worse if we don’t fix it soon.”
Echo stayed silent for a second, before finally nodding.
“Make it quick. Please.”
Four more buttons, then safety locks where the stump insided ended. Disconnect the ports. Pull the prostheses off.
Echo threw his head back and screamed.
Echo’s prosthesis slid off, leaving behind a mess of bleeding, infected and weeping wounds, fresh and old, sores and deep bruises. Echo curled up on his side, gasping and hiccuping, teetering on the edge of consciousness.
Hunder took a deep breath.
“One more to go.”
The other leg was worse. No matter how carefully Hunter tried, the socket seemed to be stuck in Echo’s flesh, and when it finally came loose, it was with most of the skin. Hunter found himself praying for Echo to pass out, wondering if the Tech Union somehow took this option from him too.
Their med kit wasn’t anything special, but it has disinfectant and enough bacta-soaked bandages to wrap Echo’s legs, and a hypospray with a painkiller. He pressed it into Echo’s hip, waiting for him to stop shivering before he pulled Tech’s blanket over him.
“Try to get some sleep,” he whispered, unsure if Echo is still awake.
When there was no answer, he turned away, heading for his own bed. He was exhausted, and there was nothing else he could do until they would arrive somewhere with a medical center.
Thin fingers gripped his wrist. Echo was looking up at him.
“Stay,” he whispered: “please.”
He didn’t want to lie down next to him - if he would move in his sleep, he could hit Echo by accident. He kneeled next to the bed, head resting on the lumpy mattress, his hand holding Echo’s, thumb drawing circles over his palm.
“Sleep.”
His back would be killing him the next day, he was sure. But Echo finally closed his eyes, breathing deeply in an undisturbed sleep that was so rare for all of them.