@tbb-appreciation-week DAY 2: ECHO (09/04) — No Order 66 AU | Touching Foreheads | "This wasn't supposed to happen."
characters and relationships: Fives, Echo, (dream) mentions of Krell, Rex and Jesse
warnings: Umbara is its own warning, mentions of violence, death and PTSD, one real-world swear word
Notes: I've wanted to write a TBB!Fives AU for a while now, and now i finally did hehe. can you tell i love (hurting) these two
read on AO3
Grabbing tentacles, thick shadows, blue-gray fog, and screams. Fives had seen this in his mind’s eye far too many times.
They could only guess at where Krell would appear next, where he would leap out of the shadows and add to the 501st’s list of casualties with his quartet of lightsabers, four-armed strikes powerful even without using the Force. Fives pushed through the jungle, the terrain that would be difficult to navigate even if they hadn’t been shrouded in darkness. He remained on Rex’s heels even as blasterfire sounded in the distance, a wailing chorus of death overlapping with the repeated audio over the comms. His helmet’s display zoomed through the dark, narrowed in on Krell’s flashing blades slicing through flesh and plastoid. “He’s coming.” He fought down the dread, the nausea that still crept up his throat no matter how much he tried to train himself out of it, and knelt in front of Jesse, blaster at the ready.
Krell was there faster than he thought, his symphony of slaughter following with a sickening crunch of breaking bones, stealing his brothers’ lives with his bare hands, throwing them into unforgiving tree trunks, slamming them into the ground. Fives’ breath caught as he flung Tup by the head, and the younger trooper went falling somewhere past Fives’ line of sight. There was nothing he could do but force the sick feeling down, keep firing.
Fives blinked and Krell was in front of him. No. No, this isn’t how it went- Panic shot through his thoughts as he was picked up in one monstrous hand, and another raised a blue-bladed lightsaber. No, no no no nonononononononono- Krell brought it down in a sweeping blow, and-
“Fives.” Rex was shaking him awake, but his voice was pitched wrong, like something from a dream, so familiar yet so foreign.
“Fives, ya snoozin’ bantha, wake up.”
That was definitely not Rex. He opened his eyes to see Echo staring down at him, the worry ridge between his eyes furrowed despite his light-hearted words. “You okay, vod? You were doing your sleep-wriggling thing again, but you looked… scared.”
Fives sat up and drew his hands over his face, delaying his response for just a few seconds as he struggled to pack the memories of Umbara back away in their little boxes in his mind. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m… fine. Just a bad dream.”
Studying his face carefully for a moment, Echo turned so his back was to Hunter and sat on the bed by Fives’ leg. “We both know your bad dreams are bad, Fives. What was it this time?” He leaned in closer, lowered his voice. “Was it Lola Sayu again?”
“No-”
“Rishi?”
“No.” Fives looked away, folded his blanket with shaking hands, hoping Echo wouldn’t notice. But of course, he did. He reached over and took it from Fives, folded it neatly in half, quarters, eighths. Set it aside in one of the Marauder’s storage compartments and put his hand over his twin’s.
“You know you’re shit at lying to me.”
“Language.” Rex would have said it, but Rex wasn’t here, so Fives said it, and it made Echo laugh.
“Calm down there, buir. Omega’s still asleep.” He leaned back against the wall, looking at Fives, waiting for him to go on.
“Umbara.” That made Echo’s eyes widen, and he scooted closer.
“Oh. Force. You okay?” he asked, softer. “I know you said it was rough.”
Fives huffed dryly. “Rough is one word for it.” He paused, and Echo waited. It took a moment, but he found the story making its way slowly out. Echo didn’t say anything when he was done, just sat close to him, leaned in and pressed his forehead to Fives’.
“I’m sorry.”
Fives closed his eyes, leaned into his brother’s warm comfort. “It’s not your fault.”
“I wasn’t there,” Echo said simply.
“And I don’t wish you were. You’re better off without those memories, trust me.”
Pulling back, Echo was quiet for a moment. “I know. But I wish I’d been with you. Even so.”
“Yeah, well. We’ll never know what would have happened, so. No point dwelling on it.” Fives got up and stretched, then squeezed Echo’s shoulder before heading to the ‘fresher. “I’m fine, Echo. Really.” He didn’t look totally convinced, but nodded anyway.
They went around their day as usual, and occasionally Fives would catch his brother giving him a concerned look. He rolled his eyes. For Force’s sake, he’d said he was fine.
(But that didn’t stop him from crawling into Echo’s bunk later that night and snuggling as close to him as humanly possible.)
« I bandaged you up while you were out and… this isn’t the first time you’ve been hurt this bad, is it? » (Antoine ~)
[angsty injury]
Joseph woken up in a clinic. Waiting room? It wasn't his home, and it wasn't Antoine's as far as he could tell. It had taken only a minute for him to fully wake up and realize who was there, and who had helped him.
Not that he appreciated needing such help again.
Perhaps he should create some magic nurse beings to follow him around.
Joseph wasn't about to respond to that until Antoine asked if he'd been hurt before. He reached up toward his neck where someone had slung a noose around his neck, trying to choke him. No doubt Antoine had seen the marks caused by it.
He looked to the rest of his body. He'd been stripped of most of his clothing. And while it wasn't exactly unexpected, he still didn't feel the most comfortable being disrobed by Antoine-presumably-while unconscious. But given how many bandages he had, how many stab wounds he'd gotten, Joseph couldn't deny it was necessary. Hell, even his wings had been torn up.
He lowered a hand to look at. Black and burnt, like other parts of his body. Had he...?
When he'd left that meeting, he'd had a thrall nearby... He remembered the attack. He remembered fighting, and having to use his holy magic to get the others away from him. And commanding someone to get him back home. He remembered being carried.
He would need to ask that thrall what really happened.
Joseph looked back to Antoine. For a moment, he couldn't help thinking about the times people he loved, people he'd cared about tried to... earn their place in the history books.
Then the look in his eyes hardened. A little defensively, "What is it to you whether or not I have? Do you really think an old vampire hasn't had their life attempted on at least once?"
