For Those with Bones of Glass - OC Oneshot
Summary : Del-Rue Sata needs more help with change than the Grand Army can offer.
Characters : Captain Rust, Padawan Del-Rue Sata, Jedi Master Amora Ali, CMO Mage (My clone OC)
Pairings : N/A
Rated : M ⤵
Word Count : 4.7k (oopsie)
Warnings : THESE OCS DO NOT BELONG TO THE AUTHOR (except for my Mage >:]) !! Multiple POV's, hurt + comfort, graphic depictions of amputation, war-typical violence, and mild gore; Clones are often referred to as commodities in this prose.
Star Wars Masterlist / Masterlist
A/N : These OCs belong to my lovely mutual, Lex !! I've recently joined her discord, and we've all been trading our OCs around. I absolutely ADORE everyone's OCs in our channel, but this little snippet about Rust and Rue's relationship had me itching to write this scene on my mind something fierce !! This one kindaaa ran away from me, but I had SO MUCH FUN writing these characters!! Enjoy ! and as always, reblog and leave a comment ♡♡
The stark white corridors and glossy, polished floors bounced the incandescent overhead lights back into Rust's eyes with a harsh glow -- nothing he wasn't already used to. Going from being a cadet in Tipoca City to regular off-world travel was akin to the gradual relief of a perpetual stun grenade that had fizzled out after bleaching his vision in white. The hundred-ninetieth division's Venator cruiser made him feel a sense of nostalgia for Kamino; Completing field assessments, practicing in the range with Rye, sparring with the juvenile CO batches, knowledge exams... some parts were worth missing.
The air was quite different this time around, however.
Palatinate-painted helms were downcast, the black transparisteel visors of his brothers held engulfing gazes behind them.
There had been a myriad of casualties, once again, but that was to be expected in war; The clones were weaned on graphic simulations to adapt to such daily, circadian horrors.
One lapse in those simulations, would always be their Jedi. No clone could've anticipated the connections they would've donned with those that had commissioned them.
Rust himself had once only seen Rye as his closest of kin, right up until the divisions were selected and assigned.
The hundred-ninetieth clone division were assigned to Jedi Master Amora Ali, and her Padawan, Del-Rue Sata.
Rust could vividly recall that day, down to the scent of the hangar's fresh-laid tarmac, his after-shave, and the oily armor polish on bare-white duraplast. It was bloody nerve-wracking for the clones, despite their rigid exterior at attention. They'd been told about the Jedi for years from the puckered mouths of their Kaminoan overseers, or the mercenaries, bounty hunters, and the Cuy'val Dar whom rightfully spited them.
But seeing General Ali and Commander Sata that day had all but dissolved the hundred-ninetieth's unease like dew on Geonosis -- Rye would surely agree, maker help the fool.
Master Amora Ali in all her grandeur and prowess, her presence alone demanding each pair of eyes behind every visor, and the scruffy little Nabooian teenager at her flank, mirroring her master's mannerisms in each stride. They, like many Jedi, were a daunting sight -- alluring in their own right; Different. They had a certain personhood that was attractive to every clone in formation.
The lot of them were knitted together finer than a Nautolan's hair after a few missions.
It had been a whole campaign since then, an entire circadian cycle as their Captain, and already so much had changed. The lot of them adapted to each obstacle, as always, but as of late, Rust had a troubling sense nagging in his head.
He had the notion that Rue was getting lame in her hypothetical strides -- only recently, anyway. He could pinpoint the moment that she had, but being the man he was, Rust would seldom pry into the girl's personal affairs.
Besides, at the end of the day, Rue was still a Jedi and Rust was just a clone.
Only, as of now, he'd been personally requested to meet Rue in the medical bay by her own Jedi Master. General Ali had pulled him aside in the hall after their most recent briefing after a short campaign on Ryloth, a stitch of concern pulling the Twi'lek master's brows together.
"Captain Rust, I'm afraid I need your help," Amora prompted him tentatively, the tone of uncertainty on her svelte tongue was vastly uncharacteristic. Apprehension, sure, but his general was rarely ever uncertain.
Rust's thick brows rose half an inch as he let a small, inquisitive hum pass his lips, "Me, general?" He emphasized with a playful lilt, attempting to bring his General a modicum of ease - something he felt she needed, recently. "I can comm Rye if you'd --"
Flustered, Amora cocked her head back and shot her Captain a nearly inscrutable look, if not for the deepened furrow in her brows.
"No, Captain, it's for Del-Rue," she replied curtly.
That made far more sense, Rust mused. "Of course, General."
The hundred-ninetieth's last campaign in the Gordian Reach sector before Ryloth had nearly cost them all a paramount loss for the whole of the division. In the din of a battle, Mags and Brass had lost their position beside Rue when one of the mines had collapsed, cutting the young Padawan off from the rest of them in the cacophony.
By the time he and Bullseye had found an alternative egress to reach her, however, no Kaminoan simulation could've prepared him for the sight of her. Their Padawan, their commander, torn up bloody and mangled, her right arm lopped off with a maimed, cauterized cut at the joint of her shoulder. She'd been conscious, stumbling on buckled legs into Rust's arms when he'd skid to his knees to catch her.
Rue had sand, Rust would give her that. Just by a glance, he'd known that she'd held her own against whomever had attacked her.
Truthfully, he hadn't been able to seek her out on the Venator -- not because of the missions, briefings, or his own training, no, Rust always made time for the girl -- the steel-bellied Captain simply couldn't meet the Padawan's gaze.
As horrible as he felt for it all, the look in Rue's eyes held a certain finality that was so daunting to him. It sank into his guts with an ill, uneasy sensation, fanged like thorny vines coiled around his intestines. Not only could he get Rue's near-mortem visage out of his mind's eye -- damp with sweat, hair plastered on her forehead, and drained of color in her face -- but Rust couldn't bare to see that defeated, sunken look in her worn gaze.
Ever since Aamon, Rust had noticed the slight change in her. He'd never mention it aloud. Unlike himself, Jedi weren't conditioned to be dulled to such profound loss -- it took him a while to learn that for himself.
So when General Ali had asked him to, Rust obliged without a beat to hesitate.
His bootsoles clicked on the floor, absentmindedly taking him toward the medical bay as his mind wandered, helmet tucked under his arm. Rue's absence was noteable amongst his brothers, the looks on their own faces would be hard to discern to the external observer, but not to a clone's trained eye.
The Venator had been peppered with a few transfers, clones from the fourth legion, an Umbra Operations fleet, and one of the earliest, led by one of the only organics in the Grand Army that wasn't Force Sensitive. Known for their versatility, their Marshall Commander had ordered two-hundred of her men to be stationed with the hundred-ninetieth legion until they recovered from their losses on Selitan.
One of which was a sharp-tongued CMO by the name of Mage, a task-driven medic whom always seemed to mutter to himself while treating those under his care. Rust had met him during the mandatory physical assessments after Selitan and Ryloth, Mage had been helping to oversee all of the hundred-ninetieth's flimsiwork to minimize the workload for their own over-exerted medics.
Rust crossed paths with the elder clone on his way out of the west-wing medical bay, his nose stuck in a holopad, yet still fully aware of Captain Rust's presence as he approached.
"Evening, Cap'," Mage greeted flatly, only raising his furrowed brows for a beat to show his acknowledgement.
"Chief," Rust replied with a sharp huff, setting his free hand on the edge of his utility belt as he set his shoulders. "How are the men?"
Mage hummed noncommittally, tapping away at the holopad for a few seconds before tucking it into the crook of his arm, shifting his weight with a small sigh as he finally met Rust's gaze. "They're all improving exponentially, I've contracted spare parts from Tipoca City. Your salvagable ranks should be back in commission within the next moon." Mage cleared his throat as he brushed a few pieces of lint from the clean, starched front of his uniform, "I surmise General Ali sent you; I expect you know why, Captain?"
"Uh... yes, sir?" Rust half-inquired, a quizzical look donning his face.
The CMO's brows furrowed, pulling his forehead and the ends of his eyes into creased lines that likely had been charted there during his rather grueling service in the Grand Army. "You either know, or you don't, Captain," Mage sighed with a deadpanned expression, passing his free hand over his buzzed head as he looked up and down the hall, unsure.
"It's Rue?" Rust asked after another beat, feeling his heart crawl into his throat after the uneasy pause.
"Aye, it's your Commander..."
Rue didn't much like the sterile environment of the medical bay -- never did. It was always too harsh on her eyes. The synthetic lighting never failed to give her an occasional migraine, the strong scent of isopropyl seemed to relentlessly cling to the cycling air in the frigid medical bay. Being moved out of the trauma center into the west wing had done little to put her at ease. In the misfortune succeeding the Selitan campaign, all available trauma centers on the Venator had been piled high with the troopers that had made it out until they could off-load the wounded on Kamino; Mangled, but mostly alive, much like herself.
She couldn't recall much of her own experience in the delirium, fading in and out of consciousness, the most Rue could remember was what had rattled her. The sheer amount of carnage after that campaign was staggering, and at the moment, Del-Rue didn't think she'd ever get past it. There were troopers laid out in sheets and cots up and down the halls, 'shinies' smeared in their first blood, frantically carrying out orders barked out by their CO's and medics to aid in tending to the wounded, limbs -- and even clones -- that had been maimed beyond all hope of repair, being swaddled up and carried off to be disposed of, every starch-white cloth in the vicinity was saturated black with blood that gathered and congealed on the floor.
It hadn't been her first loss in battle by any means, but something had rattled her.
Was it the carnage itself? The profound loss of life under their command? Was it the way in which the wounded clones looked for someone to plead to? No mother or home to truly ache for in their latter moments, beside other dying men that shared their faces? Was it the cold, encompassing mass of darkness that had found her in Selitan's labyrinth like a slavering Corellian hound?
With her daily dosages of Bacta and Valium, Rue wouldn't be likely to figure it out just yet. She couldn't recall the fourth division's Chief Medical Officer's name in the moment, -- he notably had a bleached buzzcut with intricately dyed designs and a mustache -- but he'd done well to keep her distracted for the most part.
She was wise enough to know that the CMO's consistent presence around her wasn't out of protocol -- seeing as any of the hundred-ninetieth's medics could oversee her -- but it was likely upon her Master's request that the disgruntled operative was so nigh. Amora would seldom let it show, but she worried for them all, in spite of their code.
Rue's mind always seemed to be elsewhere, but as of late, she'd been on another plane entirely, even if her world didn't currently extend past this sickly-clean smelling medical bay. In her dosed state, she drew variables together, musing to herself how different everything has become. It seemed alike after the mission on Inansis, nothing has been the same.
It was hard to tell the circadian time without a chronometer nearby, but when she assumed it to be the latter hours of the day, when Mage and the other medical staff were vacant from the med-bay, completing flimsiwork, she paced.
Paced, pondered, yearned.
There was a perpetual ache in the hollow of her chest that came with the loss of her right arm. She'd heard of a few 'refurbished' clones in each division speaking about 'phantom pains,' but at the time, she hardly understood it herself. How could anyone feel something that wasn't there? Let alone feel pain?
She was abhorrently familiar with it, now.
Even past the potent dosages of dipyrone and valium, Rue could feel her vacant arm moving. When she struggled to let sleep take her, Rue would often close her eyes and try to wiggle her fingers, sqearing up-and-down that they were still there. As she moved her hand, she could feel the slight click in her wrist from that sprain in her youth as she rotated it, could feel the strain in her muscle as she stretched it. All that distracted her from the sincerity of the sensation was the rotary cuff in her shoulder, stiff and swollen from it staples, stitches, and dressings.
From her understanding, Rue had been unconscious for a few rotations following Selitan, but when she had woken up, nobody was there. Drugged, delirious, she'd first thought she was truly alone -- that the carnage she remembered had been fatal for all. After her initial panic, she'd been informed of Master Ali's absence on the cruiser due to the hundred-ninetieth's presence on Ryloth.
Ever since, Master Ali did her best to see her Padawan as frequently as possible. A few of their men had, as well, but she noted Rust's vacancy overall.
She didn't have the stomach to ask for him until recently, being repeatedly throttled out of sleep by jarring night-terrors that occasionally startled the other recovering clones in the Med-bay, separated only by the murky holo-partitions between each bed. Her guilt chipped away at her resolve, little by little, Rue felt herself fraying.
The Nabooian Padawan couldn't bare to look at the mangled mess beneath the bandages every time Mage changed them out. He'd been kind enough to explain what had been done during the amputation procedure. The medical staff had intricately cut around the charred, dead flesh on the stump of her arm, saving as much as they could, her dead and frayed nerves were removed or soldered shut to prevent further damage from spreading to the rest of the wound, her remaining bone marrow shaved down and smoothed to make 'reapplication' a cleaner process.
Mage ensured she would receive the best care out of anyone on the ship, seeing as she was priority, yet it did little to put her at ease. If anything, her guilt festered.
More often now, Rue wondered what course her life could've taken if she hadn't been plucked off her homeworld to become a Jedi. Her memories of Naboo were vague, Rue remembers fragments rather than genuine memories.
The marble structures and palatial architecture, rolling, phthalo green moors that undulated in a breeze like an ocean's surface. Sometimes a smell alone would catapult her back into that sliver of time, before she was truly conscious of anything that wasn't in front of her chubby hands. Maker, sometimes it made her ache for normalcy, for ignorance.
Her self-loathing links of thought were snapped in two when the doors of the Med-bay opened with a pneumatic hiss, ensnaring her attention away from the cracks in the flooring as she looked up. Warped by the layered holo-partitions, Rust padded past each occupied cot until he reached the crook of the room that Rue had been set up in.
His face wouldn't let anything show, as she blinked to focus on his features. The clean-shaven space above the facial hair along his jaw had grown past stubble, a weathered look on his face and a permanent set in his brows that revealed his dismay more than anything else she'd could dissect.
"Hey, kiddo," Rust spoke first, his voice flat but not devoid of its usual warmth.
It made Rue thaw, just slightly.
"You asked for me, huh?"
She could note the bashful lilt in his voice, a slight dusting of blush on his ears as he ducked his head. He may never fully understand just how much she looked up to him.
"Mhm," Rue hummed nervously, already feeling that clamp tighten around her throat as she hauled herself out of the bed to sit up, bearing her weight onto her left arm to swing her legs over the edge. Rust took notice of the gesture, setting his helmet on the end of the medical cot before propping himself up on the edge beside Rue with a small sigh, keeping a boot on the ground out of habit as the cot bore his weight with a nearly agonized creak.
A pregnant pause engulfed Padawan and Captain, the pair of them staring at nothing in mutually listless silence; Rust decided after a moment that Rue didn't want to be the one to speak, nervously stealing a glance at her profile as he ran his fingers over his beard, stressing for something to say.
She could feel his unease rolling off him in waves through the Force.
"I heard that Mage lad was taking your prosthetic commission to his Marshal Comander, and that she'd bring it to the Council," Rust attempted, chuffing his amusement, "ain't that something?"
A shoddy attempt. Rue didn't appear as tickled by the notion than Rust, and even he didn't find it so humorous.
Bad jest.
"Well, uh..." Rust trailed off, shifting on the edge of the cot to fix his seat. Ka'ra help him... "W-Wuh-- What did you need me for, kid?"
Rue felt her throat lock up, even if she'd done everything in her will to ward off her emotions, they fled faster than she could chase. Before she could even be made aware of it, Rue's vision was swimming, the harsh, sharp lines in the Med-bay warped with her tears as her chin quivered. She couldn't bare to even look at her Captain, let alone muster the words to speak.
What would a clone think? Nigh a boy in a man's body, reared for a specific purpose; To fight and die for a Republic they never knew, for citizens that would never see them as equals. How many of his brothers had died since the first battle of Geonosis? Countless. How many of his brothers had lost more than just a limb? Thousands.
Rust might think of her as pitiful, now.
He must've caught something about her poorly-concealed wavering, as she could feel Rust warily set his hand on her smaller shoulder, could practically hear him gulp his uncertainty aloud. It did very little to soothe her, or perhaps the modicum of affection had done just that, because a broken sob slipped past Rue's chapped lips in a sputter, and just as quickly as she tried to avert her gaze, Rust was gently hooking the backs of his gloved fingers under Rue's chin to bring her back.
Even past the warble in her vision, Rue could see the stunned hurt in Rust's eyes as he watched her crack in two. Something was muttered under his breath in that broken Mando'a the clones had adopted before bringing Rue into his chest, setting her head over the painted arches on his sternum.
It was evident that he didn't know what else to do in that moment, she could hear Rust swallow hard as her body shook with unrelenting sobs, but he was careful to avoid the bandages on her right shoulder as he tucked her curly head under his chin. Maker, it was enough to keep his heart in his throat, feeling like he was being strangled by a tourniqette.
"Hey, kid, c'mon," Rust muttered, staring daggers into a glitching spot on the holo-partition beside the cot, cursing whatever higher power was out there for this. Out of every dubious situation he'd been in, this was by far the scariest, simply because Rust felt unprepared. He had only one example of a nurturing presence from his youth, so the Captain did it utmost to channel that. "Talk to me, Del-Rue, it's alright."
After a few minutes, Rue's muted cries devolved into hiccups and sniffles before she'd peel herself back from Rust's breastplate, a supportive hand on the crook of her neck to provide a somewhat soothing weight on her nape, his head ducked to her level out of human habit.
"I don't know... I don't know what's wrong with me!" Rue whimpered, bringing the hem of her isolation gown to her cheeks to wipe away the damp tears on her cheeks as they cooled. Rust furrowed his brows, confused.
"There's nothing wrong with you, ad'ika," Rust muttered, absentmindedly thumbing a curl off the Padawan's ear as her rosy, teary expression settled on him; Doubtful. "Comman-- " He curtly cut himself off with a hissed curse, "Del-Rue, you can tell me what's going on. This is confidential as long as you want it to be..."
Rue sighed sharply, her shoulders dropping by an inch as she shook her head. "I-I just -- What in Maker's name am I supposed to do with this?" Rue gestured, wriggling the mound of dressings over her shoulder stump.
The Captain 'tsked' with a click of his tongue, the curl on his forehead jostling a bit as he shook his head. "Nothing is hopeless, Rue," Rust murmured, halfway regurgitating Amora's mantra. "It's not all about the arm, is it, cyar'ika?"
Rue swallowed thickly upon Rust's gentle term of endearment, frowning as he retracted his hand to set it in his lap, giving the Padawan ample room to pull over her thoughts that were already discombobulated from other factors.
"No," she finally answered, pursing her lips as she sniffles before balling them together. "It's... everything."
Rust bit his tongue, letting Rue try to navigate what she was feeling in the moment, pressing his lips together as he scrutinized each morsel of emotion in her features. She seemed to be weighing whether or not she could speak on something, and no amount of prying would enable her; Rue needed coaxing.
"Ever since Inansis... I just feel like everything's been slipping past my control like sand between my fingers," Rue began, wiping the back of her wrist under her nose before clasp her hands together -- only, her left hand groped at a vacant space where her right should've been there to meet it. It sent another aching pang in her chest. Rust caught it, taking a few beats to consider himself before awkwardly extending his gloved hand for her.
To his surprise, Rue took it without much thought, her smaller hand clamping around his own in a vice, her fingers absently worrying into the durable black weave as she school her breathing.
"I'm not sure how to explain it, but... I mean -- I know that nothing charted is set-in-stone, but nothing feels linear, anymore. It feels like... now anything could happen at the drop of a pin," Rue mumbled, trying to find the right words for how she felt in that moment. The grief, the paranoia, the confusion. She shouldn't feel this way, she was a Jedi, for Maker's sake! It only sent her further into a spiral. Her body felt foreign like this, and it was something new to loathe.
In a way, Rust understood.
Everything was brief for a clone; Pubescence, maturity, life itself, and the meager connections they'd mold along the way. Anything could change at the flip of a credit, but the difference was, Rust and his brethren had been reared to endure it better than an organic could. Rue knew that well.
"Ad'ika," Rust prompted Rue firmly, rousing her attention with a small squeeze, "I swear to you, everything is going to be alright. You're a strong girl, you're already getting through this..."
The hundred-ninetieth's Captain trailed off, shifting himself of the cot to angle himself toward Rue a bit more, swallowing as he mulled over what honest assurance he could provide the Padawan.
"And... anything can happen, and it will," Rust hummed, keeping his voice low for the sake of the other clones resting in the Med-bay. "But that doesn't mean we'll let it happen to you. I want you to know, kid, the lot of us -- the boys and I -- we care about you, we'd never want for you to suffer for anything, little one."
Rust trailed off for a moment as his gaze passed between Rue's eyes, the bulge in his throat bobbing past the high neckline of his body-glove as he swallowed, "What happened on Selitan... it shouldn't have -- I wish I could -- "
No, now wouldn't be the time for self-pity, in spite of how Rust ached to take Rue's place on that cot. She was just a bloody kid for Maker's sake!
Rue's brows pulled together as she scrutinized Rust's expression, a small frown tugging at her lips as her her head cocked to the side; "You can't blame yourself, Rust -- "
"I absolutely can, and I will," Rust nipped back, squeezing Rue's hand in assurance that his ire was directed to himself more than his Commander. "That's beside the point anyway, kid. The point I guess I'm trying to make is... I'll always be right here for you. Always, from here on out; Whatever change you need to adapt to, you won't have to feel like you're doing it alone."
He only wished he could've dawned on this sooner. Rust didn't need to go into specifics, or weasel into Rue's personal matters to offer her a shred of empathy; It came easily to him regarding their division's Padawan.
Rue looked as if she'd just start crying again, her swollen lip quivering as she bit back her tears, expelling a sigh with a sharp hiss as her shoulders dropped. "You shouldn't feel guilty," she mumbled, giving her Captain's hand an equally reassuring squeeze.
"Hmph, and you shouldn't worry about your arm," Rust countered with a gentle hum, letting Rue idly stroke her thumb over one of his knuckles as he offered the Padawan a small smile. "You'll be right as rain here soon, kiddo. It's just going to take some getting used to," the officer mused, giving Rue's hand a slight shake, "not a lot of Jedi get a wizard prosthetic -- only the coolest ones do, I hear."
Rue snorted at the notion, unable to help her own amusement toward Rust's foolish little statement, "Rust, that's so stupid -- "
"It is not!" Rust guffawed at Rue's reaction, "Wait and see, you'll have a wicked-cool endo-cybernetic hand -- we can even get you a skin for it, maybe even design it, like that time when we all drew on Slips' cast," Rust offered with an amused snicker that shook his shoulders as Rue giggled past her remaining tears, now cool and damp on her cheeks.
"Thank you, Rust..."
"What for?"
"Nothing, nothing... can I ask you one more thing?"
Rust chuffed, nodding along as Rue's bloodshot gaze settled on him again, "Anything for you, kiddo, s'like I said."
Rue pursed her lips for a moment, glancing between Rust and a random spot past his head as her mind occupied itself with another notion, -- she often looked elsewhere while thoughtful -- finding Rust's eyes with that same wariness from before; "May you... Could you stay with me in the Med-bay, tonight? If it's alright with you and Mage, of course..."
The hundred-ninetieth's Captain was already nodding his head, a genuine smile crossing his features as he gave Rue's hand another firm squeeze, "Of course I can, ad'ika, Rye can finish our reports, he owes me for that last time -- "
Which he wasn't about to speak on, for his brother's sake.
" -- As for Mage, I don't see why he'd mind, s'long as I'm out of the man's way."
Rue mirrored his smile with one of her own, and it nearly slapped him back in time, onto that fresh-laid tarmac, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his brothers at attention in vow to their Jedi. He would stand by that vow until his breath vacated his lungs, and he joined his brothers in the stars, and no sooner than Del-Rue Sata.
For that, he swore it on his life.
Footnotes : Thank you if you've made it this far !! If you enjoyed this, shoot an OC prompt into my inbox !! Comments and reblogs are favored ♡♡