Summary: periods suck, but the bad batch is here to help! No smut this time, just comfort from the bestest of bad boys!
A/N: So, I'm on my period (ow), and I wish the batch was here to help... so let's pretend they are! Periods are a roller coaster, so for those who have to deal with one and need a hug from the best bad boys when it gets bad, this is for you! I wrote this as though all the men sorta have a crush on the reader, but it’s not too suggestive, so interpret it however you want!
also, I know I'm the worst at keeping to a predictable writing schedule which makes it hard for people to keep up with my fics when they are posted. And I do remember that I promised more fun with the Right Attire series before anything else - turns out those ones are harder to write than I expected! I promise those are in the works! For now, have a sweet little period comfort fic instead!
Mando’a:
Mesh’la = Beautiful
dividers by @/djarrex
“What’s wrong with you?” Wrecker asks as they return from a market trip and find you curled into a ball around a heating pad, head tucked into your knees, groaning on the couch with a container of pain meds, an empty ice cream container, and an assortment of tissues and tissue boxes scattered across the nearest counter.
All the gents pause for a moment.
“Sabotaged by my baby box…” your voice mumbles from around the pillow you’re currently squashing between your lap and heating pad, unwilling to uncurl to do so.
“Ah, I see.” Says Tech, redirecting his steps from the workbench in the main room to the outdoor one, knowing you like quiet when the pain grips your internal organs like this.
Echo heads straight to the kitchen and starts filling a water bottle.
Hunter sits down next to you and leans you against his side, rubbing your back.
“What?” Asks Wrecker, genuinely confused.
Crosshair chuckles from where he’s leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, and shifts his toothpick to answer. “She’s on her period, Wrecker.” He states it blatantly, much to your dismay. Not that you didn’t just say the same thing in different words, but somehow it’s the delivery that just grates on your nerves. But before you can spiral down that rabbit hole, Wrecker’s voice drags you from your emotional reverie.
“Ooooooohhhhh…. Uh…. Want me to make you a nest?” Wrecker tries.
Echo emerges from the bedrooms, slightly cool water bottle in hand, bowl of fruit under his arm, and a blanket draped over his shoulder, and Tech hot on his heels. “She’s not a bird, Wrecker.”
“Mmmmm, yes please Wreck,” you mumble again, this time from Hunter’s shoulder.
Echo chuckles fondly, “Maybe you are our little bird today.”
“Actually,” Tech’s finger is in the air as he spouts facts, “many mammals also have nesting tendencies. Sometimes it is a child rearing tactic. In many cases it is lumped in with a group of behaviors or time of year, for example hibernation. There is also—“
Chuckling fondly at Tech’s incessant fountain of knowledge, you stretch a hand towards your water bottle on the counter, only to have Tech snatch it away as he stops chatting at you.
“Hey!” You protest, hand going limp on the edge of the table in frustration with a moan of disdain.
“That one’s empty, here,” Echo gently offers, sliding the one he’d just filled into your hand and sitting on your other side.
He and Hunter help you sit up without uncurling to drink the water.
Tech reappears, having deposited the empty water bottle into the kitchen. He stands in front of you with your favorite fuzzy socks, headband, and salty snacks, and a napkin so you can eat where you are.
You give a tired smile, relaxing a bit as they all take the time to help you through the pain. “Thanks guys.”
“We’re not done just yet,” Hunter says, placing a kiss on your temple as he stands up.
You groan at the loss of one of your favorite heaters.
“He will be right back,” Echo whispers into your other ear, pulling you closer.
You hum in answer again as you relax into him.
“Back already,” Hunter plops down beside you again.
You grumble in protest as your comfy seat bounces in response.
“Sorry,” he whispers against your shoulder, his hand sliding into yours. But instead of simply intertwining his fingers with yours you find yours getting wrapped around a crinkly package.
You look down at it, confused, until you notice what it is… your favorite chocolate.
“Hmmmm, you guys spoil me,” you mumble back.
“Hmm, not enough,” he and Echo tell you, wrapping you in the blanket Echo brought and rubbing any part of you that they can reach.
Tech reappears again, having used his brother’s attention on you to disappear yet again without anyone noticing… that is, except Crosshair, who walks beside him carrying an arm full of books.
“We were unsure which one you are reading at the present time, or if there are several, but these were the books I kept a record of you mentioning most recently. Crosshair’s idea.” Tech finishes with a finger pointing to the sky, rather proudly.
Behind them Wrecker appears, almost entirely hidden behind the piles of blankets and pillows he’s collected from your room and his. He pauses, and reshuffles so his mismatched eyes can reappear over the top of the multitude of comforts he carries.
“Where do you wanna be?” He booms excitedly. He always enjoys building nests.
“Where she is, Wrecker. Don’t make her move.” Crosshair tells him, with his usual grumpiness.
Wrecker ignores him, still looking at you with a smile in his eye.
“Na, we need more space than that. We’re all burrowing in with you, Mesh’la,” Hunter instructs. “Move that and we’ll use the floor.”
Wrecker uses one foot to move things out of the way until Echo, and Crosshair get up and help.
Hunter stays put, keeping you upright and warm.
“My Dear,” Tech purrs, “I need you to simply answer yes or no to these questions so that I may make sure we have all necessary items on hand before we settle in.”
You nod, laughing feebly, “I think you already have everything, but ok.”
He lets a small proud smirk grace his lips and launches into a list of symptoms and you diligently answer, knowing he just wants to make you feel better.
20 minutes later and you’re fed and curled up in the middle of 5 caring men, talking softly as you doze off. Your head is in Hunter’s lap as he massages your scalp and shoulders. Echo has your middle where he’s keeping a constant pressure on the heating pad on your abdomen, his hand massaging where your kidneys are to relieve the tension of your body in overdrive. Tech is massaging your feet through the fuzzy socks. Wrecker and Crosshair are spread out in front of you, keeping you in the center of their circle as Crosshair pretends to focus on what’s going on outside the window. Secretly he’s been unwrapping chocolate to feed you whenever you start to seem uncomfortable again. Tucked beneath your arm as you doze, is the book Crosshair pulled from the pile for you at your request. It’s quickly joined by Lula as Wrecker winks at you as he animatedly tells a story from when he walked Omega to Shep’s house for a sleepover this morning.
“Sleep,” Crosshair whispers to you around his toothpick, “We’re not going anywhere.”
Tucked between your favorite men in the galaxy, you drift off to a peaceful, relatively pain free, nap. By the time you fall asleep, one hand is tangled in Crosshair’s loose grip, and one in Wrecker’s.
Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it! And NO dropping it into an AI to finish it for me! That’s stealing my work and feeding it to an AI without my consent. It is not okay to give an AI something you didn’t write yourself!
Progress on the next chapter is running smoothly especially recently and I'm sorry i haven't updated sooner! This will be a beast of a chapter and right now, its sitting at twelve pages in my pages document.
I figure it'll be even more than that so, in the meantime, thank you for your patience!
Word Count: ~5.7k (I cannot write shorter fics than that anymore, so have a long one)
Special thanks to @mybrainislostinagalaxyfarfaraway for the inspiration for this one! Link to original post idea, below (but the original idea post and the tumble of the person who posted it seem to have vanished - if you can, please help me find them and tag them and repair my tags and links)! FYI, I did modify the original prompt slightly, but OP approved of the change before I even wrote it, so we are all good! Sorry it took me so long!
Summary: He’s a fan of your erotica work - he has no idea you write it, and you have no idea he reads it, and yet you work side by side every day! This part ends before the smut so other writers can dream up their own scenarios with details relevant to their works!
TW: reader writes smutty fics while living onboard the Resolute. Reader has own room (no roomies). Reader has okay relations with family, but not great ones, prefers distance from them.
Mando’a:
Ner = my
Mesh’la = beautiful
Verd = warrior
Shebs = butt/ass
Other SW Terms:
Kark/kriff = both common expletives used in place of “shit” or “fuck” or “damn”
Dank ferrik = commom expletive used in place of “oh shit” or “damn it”
*************************************************
Slowly, the harmless acronyms of your secret writing world began to permeate your everyday war-focused acronyms.
Memos telling your troopers to keep things G-rated around children became “and remember, anything NSFW that isn’t a part of your standard kit stays on the ship, today’s mission is protecting a large town with lots of families so keep it clean for the kiddos, please!”
the typical “IP” note to Captain Rex turned into “WIP” when you were tired. He never questioned it, so you assumed it must be commonplace for others to use too.
Rex never told you where he learned it. He couldn’t! It wasn’t the sort of thing a Captain, of all people, went and told everyone. Ranking officers had a reputation to uphold. Their men looked up to them, especially bright-eyed young shinies who’d yet to be introduced to galactic nightlife.
And yet, somehow, it was the thing that kept him sane while fighting a war. The thing that reminded him that not everyone in the galaxy was out to get them. The thing that reminded him that the galaxy was worth saving because it was filled with beautiful moments and not just the pain of war.
The horrors of war had long since left a deep scar in the Captain’s mind, but it was a price he was willing to accept to protect the galaxy. And no matter how hard the worst days became, he would always go back to reading stories about the most beautiful aspect of the people he fought so hard to protect: the way they made love. Besides, reading about making love instead of war every night was the only thing that let him find his way to sleep. War was beyond brutal.
Rex had long since accepted that very few people would be willing to be partners with a man who did not know if he would live to see the next sunrise. He himself spent every day facing the fact that each battlefield could be his last. And even if it wasn’t, the loss and heart-wrenching difficulties of war had a tendency to leave him as a different man at the end of each one. So, if he couldn’t have a partner in real life with which to share the difficulties, and do all the small, mundane, domestic things, just like the rest of the galaxy, and share the joys of sensual love, then no one could stop him from dreaming about it. And that gave him hope. And hope was an essential part of continuing on in war.
But he had decided long ago, when he became a Captain, that he would never tell a soul about this. It was his little secret thing. Besides, if his troopers ever did find out, he’d never hear the end of it.
If Fives ever found out… Rex didn’t want to think about it. This was Rex’s special, secret. And he loved it.
He always did everything in his power to keep it out of his troopers' hands, and far away from the battlefield.
And now, now that the post-battle reports were almost done, he could start to let himself think about it a little bit.
*************************************************
Tonight your goal had been to finish the last WIP you’d started months ago when inspiration had hit between grueling battles. And tonight, you’d succeeded. You proofed the polished piece one last time, took a deep breath, and tapped “post”.
As you sat back in your seat, a call from Rex came in on your comm, making you nervous you’d posted it somewhere the rest of the ship could see it.
“Lieutenant, can I get the list of the soldiers your shift deemed medically cleared for duty from you? I’m wrapping up reports, and that’s the last piece of data I need.” Rex’s voice showed no hint of anything other than the same post-battle paperwork as usual, and you loosed a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding.
Beside him, his personal datapad beeped and lit up, a banner across the screen notified him that his favorite author had just posted a new work! Rex couldn’t wait to get to it when these last few reports were done.
“Sure thing, Captain! I take it Kix forgot to send it again.” The normalcy in your voice surprised even yourself.
“You know Kix, but he keeps everyone on their feet, so I don’t mind having to ask for them. Besides, it’s handy to have you onboard. You have all the same medical clearances he does, and you’re much more fun to talk to.” Rex finished. The exhaustion and potential to read a NSFW story tonight seemed to be making Rex bold, even to his inner dialog. Where normally he’d be all business, tonight he was opening up a little, dare he even consider it flirtatious?
The voice on the other end of the phone laughed. “That’s sweet of you! But don’t tell Kix you said that, Captain!”
Rex laughed, “Oh, don’t worry, I think they all know. Everyone enjoys your company in a sea full of identical faces.”
“Haha, well I hope being one of the few different faces isn’t the only thing I have going for me!”
“Certainly not! Like I said, you’re fun to talk to, Sweetheart.” Rex felt the heat rising in his neck, he didn’t usually let himself call you Sweetheart so openly like that… what had become of his filter tonight?
Rex’s work datapad beeped with a new notification, both of which were audible over the comms, but he didn’t know that. “Thanks for the reports! Talk more tomorrow,” Rex yawned.
You snickered, suppressing a yawn of your own, and wished him goodnight.
Rex glanced over the list of names, clicked approve, attached it to his last report and submitted it.
Finally, Rex had time for himself, time to read his favorite author’s new piece!
Rex wondered who the mystery author was, no one used their actual names on this site, that’s what made Rex comfortable with using it. There was no way to trace it back to him, except through his personal datapad, so he felt comfortable using it on a republic ship. Besides, he knew there were much weirder things getting pulled up on republic ships, war was rough after all, and he wasn’t about to judge anyone for however they decided to cope with it.
So, Rex settled in for the night, your cheerful voice on his mind, and decided he needed to picture this new scenario in your voice, with you attached. No matter how risqué that seemed, something about it filled a need for him. There had always been something about you that attracted Rex, though he couldn’t put his finger on what specifically. But that didn’t exactly matter. What did matter was that he finally had someone real who made him feel like he wanted the scenarios he always read about. You!
The comm next to him beeped again. Rex sighed and looked at it. Speaking of, it was you, again!
Rex got nervous. “Everything ok, Sweetheart?” He asked hesitantly, and didn’t even notice he had once again used his internal pet name for you.
Suddenly you were glad you were just on comms and he couldn’t see you, it was hard not to smile when he called you that, and he always did it after particularly grueling battles, like this one. And this was the second time this evening!
“I can’t find my blaster cleaning kit. Did I leave it with you earlier when I dropped off the General’s saber after the battle?”
Rex silently breathed a sigh of relief and looked around the room.
Sure enough, there it was!
“Yup, I have it right here. Want me to bring it to you this time?” he asked.
“Na, I need to get up and stretch a bit anyways, been sitting at my desk too long. I’ll be by in a minute… if that’s okay?”
“Sure thing, see you in a minute!” Rex took a deep breath and looked around the room. He could feel the warmth rising in his face. Why had he just agreed to that? He was all disheveled from a post-battle shower, his personal datapad was still right there with the new fic he was starting to read pulled up, and he had nothing to do until you came by. Not to mention that he’d just been thinking about you… sexually… he knew you couldn’t read his mind, but he still felt guilty about it.
A quiet knock on his door pulled him out of his reverie. Kark! That was fast! Rex shoved his personal datapad under the pillow of the makeshift bunk he sometimes used for a nap in this closet of a space Skywalker and Kenobi had set aside for him. Then he straightened his blacks, scooped up the item you had asked about, and opened the door.
“Hi, thanks, Rex! Sorry, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything!”
Rex found himself a little extra flustered when he opened the door to find you standing in your nightclothes - a slightly too large shirt you’d cut the neck out of, and shorts. Probably more of you than he’d ever seen exposed before. He hoped he was the only man who’d see you like this tonight… or any night for that matter.
“Na, you’re fine I was just…. Uh… reading… before I turn in for the night.” His flustered brain was doing anything except being useful, of course. The one thing he’d been trying to avoid talking about was what he’d just been reading, why did he have to say that?
“Ooo! I like to read! May I ask what you were reading?”
“Uh…” Rex couldn’t say no, so he tried to think fast, “Just something new from my favorite author.”
“Oh! What author?”
Kriff! He hadn’t thought about that question coming next, but in hindsight, he should have. It’s the obvious follow-up question.
“Oh, not books, just, uh… short stories!” Rex was proud of himself, this was going OK! Which is to say: better than he’d expected. Was that too low of a bar to set for himself, or too high?
“Ah, cool! Well, I love to read, but I don’t often have much time anymore either, if you find any good short stories, let me know! I’m curious to know what a strong leader like you likes to read in his downtime!”
Aaaaaand there went his good luck. The bar was indeed too high. Rex felt the warning lights going off in his own mind, warning him of an imminent crash if this conversation continued. Much to his dismay, he did like talking with you.
Rex laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, eyes drifting to the floor. “Sure thing!” He lied, and faked a yawn, “but for tonight, I think it’s time for bed for us both! It was a long day, I’ll see you in the morning, Lieutenant.”
You smiled, nodded, and headed off down the hallway, back to your quarters.
Rex closed the door and sighed. That was close. Too close. He hoped he hadn’t given anything away. Maybe he should start to think up excuses for when you inevitably ask about what he was reading… but for tonight, there was still a whole fic waiting to be read!
*************************************************
The next morning, Rex made a point to check in on the medbay patients while you’re on shift.
He hadn’t told you, or anyone really, but he always planned it that way. He liked to drop by the medbay when you were around. So far, he’d managed to keep it off his brother’s radar and make it appear somewhat random. He just hoped he could keep that up for a while longer.
“You mentioned that you were up late working on something when we spoke last night,” Rex commented, somewhat worried about you. “I thought you’d finished all your reports and sent them in already, hours before. I hadn’t seen any more come through the pipeline that late in the evening, nor this morning. Did I miss anything, Lieutenant?”
“Oh! No, you didn’t miss anything. It was just, uh… some personal things. That’s all! Nothing to worry about, Captain!” Your cheeks felt warm. Hopefully, Rex wouldn’t figure out that he was the cause of your suddenly shy demeanor! There was no way he knew he was on your mind when you were writing last night, could he? Wait, how could he, he didn’t even know you wrote things like that! Probably for the best, you didn’t want to imagine how sorry he’d feel for you to know that was how you were satisfying your cravings for lust these days. Then again, this was war. Maybe it wasn’t so unusual on a ship packed full of men with no relief, no break, no love in sight for weeks, months, years even sometimes. But something told you there were only 2 potential reactions to him finding that out about you: awkward curiosity or disappointment, and you didn’t know which was worse.
“Well, if you need time off to focus on family or friends, I want to make sure you don’t feel bad asking for it. You know I’d grant it. You’re a civilian. I know you need breaks to attend to things at home.” Rex assured you.
“Thanks, but I don’t need time off. I’m actually grateful to have time away from them. Family is family, but being around them wasn’t helping me figure out who I am. I like being farther away from them, if I’m being honest. Allows me to just be…” your voice trails off for a moment, but your mind returns to his comment. “I was just working on some of the things I enjoy in my downtime. It’s nice to have time for those sorts of things, don’t you think?”
“Couldn’t agree more. But now I’m curious,” Rex smirks, intrigued but doing his best to keep the comments light and appropriate for a medbay check-in, “What sorts of fun things occupy your time when these rowdy troopers aren’t flirting with you all day?” he gestures to the men in the bunks lining the walls as he refers to them. “What does your mind need to do to slow down and relax after a grueling battle?” Rex’s eyes are beginning to hint at something on the edge of flirtation, but it couldn’t be… could it? Rex isn’t the type to break his Captain’s demeanor to flirt. Your mind races away into the star-streaked black of hyperspace, too many thoughts flashing by for you to grasp at any one at a time.
Rex nudges you with his shoulder, a raised eyebrow bringing you back to reality.
“Uh, not that different from you, actually, it seems. Reading, writing, music, a good holofilm. An escape from war. Though the company of this war is better than I’d expected,” you teased.
“Did you say you write?” Rex zeroed in on the one thing you hadn’t mean to let slip.
“Uh, not that I have much time to write, haven’t really done it in a while, to be honest,” you babbled, lying through your teeth, trying to detract from his interest.
“That’s too bad,” Rex’s comment paused your ramblings, “I was hoping I’d get a chance to learn more about you, by reading what you write about when you need a break from war.”
You stared at him for a moment. He was flirting with you… right? Or was he just trying to be nice and befriend the civies on his ship so they would feel comfortable amongst his troops like any good Captain would? It must be the latter, right? Rex didn’t seem the type to flirt this openly…
“Lieutenant,” Kix called, “I need 50 cc’s of pain reliever, please”
“Oh, sorry Captain, I have to, uh,” you pointed to Kix, already moving to the supply cabinet for the pain meds.
Rex just nodded and continued walking around the room, checking in with his men as they recovered. Unknowingly, giving you the chance to steal glances at him as you continued your work healing his men. Meanwhile, he did the same thing from across the room, pretending he was simply keeping an eye out behind him like any good officer would, but anyone who knew him could tell his gaze lingered just a little too long on a certain medic…
*************************************************
One evening finds you just sitting with Rex, chatting around a campfire for the first watch of the night after a long battle and hearty meal. It’s just the two of you on watch, for this quadrant of troops, soft snores from nearby tents telling how draining this battle was.
“Rex, when you said you’d like to read what I write…” you find yourself poking around with a stick in the dirt when you say it, watching him out of the corner of your eye.
Rex sits up a little straighter, nodding encouragingly.
“Did you mean, whatever I wrote? Like… anything at all? Even if it’s a little… unusual? Or strange compared to a normal book or story?”
“I don’t just read adventure stories, if that’s what you’re getting at?” He asks, head tilted, curiosity piqued.
There’s no going back now.
“Well, what if it was… kind of… uh………” of all the times to struggle with words, this sure wasn’t a great moment for that to plague you.
“Kind of…” you stalled, mentally shuffling through his previous statements about what he liked to read for hints of words you could borrow, trying to avoid the words you didn’t want to say that were the only things actually populating your mind, like vulgar or lewd. “Wait, are you implying the stoic Captain reads romances and poetry in his spare time?”
“Well…” Rex suddenly can’t hold eye contact with you as he answers, his shyness peaking through, “On occasion, though, I admit it’s not something I read often.”
“So what does the fearless Captain read in his spare time, then?”
Now it was Rex’s turn to search for stall tactics. “Uh, well, I don’t often have time to read.”
“But you were reading just the other night,” you pressed, glad you weren’t the one under scrutiny again, even though it had been your own comment that put you there, you’d gotten too shy to be able to fess up to a man with as strong of a reputation as Rex, even though you knew his kind side.
“Like I said, short stories,” he filled in, knowing it wouldn't be enough, “adventure, strategy, and I guess some romances too.” He hoped that would be enough. So he turned the table back on you, “But you brought up the topic about things you write. What sort of… unusual?” he quoted your own words back at you.
Kark, you were in it now. Damn the dark of night for giving you courage to say something in the first place. Though you knew you could just tell Rex you weren’t ready to talk about it after all and he’d let it go, and act like nothing had happened if that was what you wanted. But, if there was anyone who wouldn’t hate you for it, nor treat you like a piece of meat ready for the taking because of it, it was Rex. On the other hand though, if Rex hadn’t really meant that he’d be comfortable reading anything, if he’d meant that he had limits and that was beyond what he normally read, he’d never be able to look you in the eye or sit at the same table or campfire anymore. You weren’t sure you could take that.
Apparently you stalled too long, and Rex jumped in, words coming out a bit rushed like he was nervous. “You don’t have to tell me anything, if you don’t want to. I hope I didn’t make you feel like you should tell me anything. I won’t pry. You seem a bit nervous. I won’t ask any more questions about it, I know how it feels to be stuck trying to figure something out. Let’s give it some time so you can think, yeah? If you want someone to read something, never feel bad asking. I want to be there for you in any way that I can. You are welcome to decline that, or accept it, or pretend it never happened if you like. I just want to encourage you if you need it, or be there for you if you need me.”
“Thanks, Rex,” you smile at the campfire, tucking your hair behind your ear.
*************************************************
Days pass, battles take their toll, and once again you find yourself needing to write something… especially after another moment with Rex leaves you a little, well… distracted. So you sit down to write one night, and what comes out surprises even you!
You write a fic heavily inspired by something that actually happened in battle, without revealing too many details… or so you think…
The fic depicts a simple damsel saves the knight scenario in a woodland, setting the two characters facing off with a wild animal. All in all, a common trope… and after prepping the fic with all the necessary warnings and notes, you click “post”.
On the other side of the ship, unbeknownst to you, someone’s personal datapad lights up with a notification of a new post from his favorite author. Having finished his work for the evening and searching for a way to fall asleep in his bunk in his tiny little office space, Rex picks up his datapad and starts to read.
But something about this fic strikes him as oddly familiar. The Deja vu only growing stronger as he reads on, until Rex’s own past takes the reigns and he’s whisked away into his memories…
Attempting to sneak up on an enemy outpost, alone, during a critical battle, Rex finds himself alone and face-to-face with an unusually large Nexu.
He’s pretty sure he’s lunch and this is how it ends.
Until a jetpack-powered shove from his favorite Mandalorian saves his ass and drops the Nexu down a short cliff that curves away and forces it away from the battleground.
“Never thought I’d see the day the tough Captain of the legendary boys in blue became the damsel in distress…” you laugh, touching down a few feet away, surprisingly lightly considering your heavy armor kit.
He chuckles, taking the hand you offer to pull him to his feet. “As great as it was to see a badass woman save my shebs [ass], we still have a battle to win.”
She can practically hear the smirk he wears beneath his helmet as he nudges her playfully with his arm.
“Then I’m glad you weren’t some wild animal’s lunch. We’re gonna need you to get through this one, Cap.”
“Then let’s take this tower offline, ner mesh’la verd [my beautiful warrior]!” As soon as it was out of his mouth he realized his mistake. That nickname for you was something he only ever said in his head, he hadn’t intended to say it out loud to you… or ever, really… so, to cover his mistake, he turned and ran off back into the heat of the battle, both blasters drawn. And you follow. Soon, Rex finds himself in one of his favorite spots, taking down droids, back to back with his favorite Mandalorian warrior…
That was how the real scenario went.
Rex knew. He was there! He was the one whose shebs you saved, and the one that slipped and called you ‘his beautiful warrior’! Just like the character in this fic did when a strong beautiful woman saved his ass from a similar creature…
And it would seem that 1) you wrote this fic, 2) you had not only caught that Rex had called you that, but remembered it all these weeks later, and 3) perhaps were a little aroused by it… considering that you used it in a fic?
But that had been many, many battles ago! And by the way that things had gone back to normal since then, you still fought every battle you could at his side, he had thought you hadn’t noticed his slip-up!
Rex scrolls down a ways, skipping ahead to see if this was going in the direction he hoped it was. And sure enough, this scenario was only the beginning, feeding life into the love depicted a few paragraphs down.
Kriff, if you were gonna write a fic this steamy about a moment like that staying on your mind… maybe he could think about it in that way too?
Very quickly, this day turns into the best night in a long while as he imagines you and him in place of the lead characters in your fic, learning about your mind and all the things that one little moment makes you want to do with him! Or, at least, given that you chose a moment with him to inspire this fic, he can only hope you want to finish the scenario with him too!
As he attempts to drift off to sleep, Rex finds himself ecstatic that you are his favorite author.
The trick is figuring out how to tell you that he loves your work and would like to make your dreams come true… without seeming like a creepy stalker…
But, if the little moments between the two lead characters continue to be inspired by little moments with Rex, then he needs to tell you the feeling is mutual, or he will lose his chance with you.
Since he seems to be inspiring several of your fics, the odds must be in his favor. He just has to make a move. Easier said than done…
So… how does he tell you he’s your biggest fan without making it awkward and weird?
Maybe if he starts slow? With little things to make sure he’s reading into it correctly (pun intended).
So, he tries to replicate a look you described as a focused, methodical soldier, who can see right into your soul, because you mentioned that the look, made you shiver because no one had seen you as clearly as he seemed to in that moment.
When he tries it in real life, your eyes widen slightly and you barely suppress a shiver. You have to look away and clear your throat before answering his question.
He acts like he didn’t spot your reaction (his men don’t need to know).
And a few days later, during a moment alone with you, he calls you ‘my beautiful warrior’ in Mando’a again, and smiles when you melt into shyness and look pointedly at the floor, trying not to smile.
But that’s all he gets a chance to say and do before another few particularly rough battles steal your attention from each other back to the life and death of the galaxy you live in.
*************************************************
It’s a few weeks before you find yourself sitting across another campfire from Rex as the two of you sit on watch for the night, the post-battle rhythm settling back in, and the need for distraction from the last few battles has both your minds drifting towards the sultry and suggestive.
After you each share a few flirty remarks and laughs as your watch draws on, he decides it’s time he just went for it.
“Ya know, I’ve been thinking. You asked me what I read in my spare time… and if it’s romance…” Rex picks at a twig on the log he sits on.
Your gaze moves straight to him, an eager look in your eye.
Now it’s his turn to get a little shy as he scratches the back of his neck.
“And to share it with ya if I’d read any good stories, lately…” He tries his hardest to meet your eyes, even just for a few seconds at a time.
“Yeah?” You prompt him, careful not to tease, but to encourage, though you couldn’t help but sit up straighter, focusing all your attention on him.
Before Rex can answer, the sound of approaching boots and laughing troopers draws your attention. You glance at your chrono and realize your shift is over, and it’s time for Fives and Echo to take over the watch.
Rex offers to walk you back to your tent, and you let him. Echo and Fives are too engrossed in their own discussion to notice that you two both seem a little cozy and flustered.
Once out of earshot of the duo with a nose for trouble, Rex offers to show you his favorite short story he’d found recently.
It’s hard not to smile when you invite him into your tent while telling him you’d love to read it.
In the safety of your tent, with the light dim and high above your head so no one can see your shadows, sitting next to you on your cot, he has no reservations about using his personal datapad to access his little secret site.
And then he hands it to you so you can see his url and that he’s looking at your fic - the one where you save his ass from getting eaten, and it’s clearly him.
You stare in awe.
The url he’s using… you know that url! You’ve seen it in your notifications! He usually only reblogs them, rarely ever commenting, and now that you know the man behind it you know why. He’s shy and reserved!
And that’s when the fact that he’s just handed you your fic actually settles in.
You cover your mouth with your free hand as your eyebrows shoot upwards, stunned into silence for a few moments, struggling to find something to say like a fish out of water.
Rex is watching with rapture as you process it all.
And not only is this your fic, but it’s the one that you finally let it be totally inspired by clearly identifiable, real life moments that had happened with him, of all people!
Kark… so thinking no one will know in real life when you’d finally had 20 seconds of courage to post it might have been totally out of line, in hindsight, but dank ferrik, now he knew and it has become his favorite fic?
“But I —this… my… you’re [jaigB51]? Of course that’s you!” You finally manage, clutching the datapad tightly.
“That’s me…” Rex is getting shy, so he tries to push past it, “—and [url] is you, right?” He asks, heat rising in his cheeks.
“Yeah,” you mutter, still stunned, still staring at the little letters at the top of the page, in disbelief that this is really happening.
You look up at him, lost and awed.
He only smiles and tugs the datapad from your hands.
“I’ve noticed that several moments from real life have made it into your fics. Several moments that were just… us… did you mean that you are attracted to me, or just the moments that we shared? Because if it’s not me, I’ll back off and we can pretend this never happened, if you want, if you didn’t mean it like that?” He covers, fiddling with his own fingers as he asks, suddenly struggling to look at your face.
You scoot closer and take a deep breath, preparing to say it.
“I like you, Rex. I did it because I like you, not just the moments we shared.”
Relief washes over Rex as his eyes meet yours again, “I like you too, ner Mesh’la Verd… a lot, if I’m being honest…”
He opens his arms to you and you throw yours around him.
This moment has been a long time coming for Rex. He’d figured it out months ago when you’d posted the fic, but he hadn’t had the courage to say anything for weeks. Now that he finally has, and it’s gone so well, all he can do is hold you close and enjoy the warmth of your arms and the feel of your heartbeat against his own.
”Oh, Rex!” You whisper into his shoulder as you nuzzle in.
He chuckles faintly, the comforting grip of his arms, unrelenting. “Would I be correct if I guessed that those scenarios were things you wanted to do together then? …like a wishlist of sorts?” He whispers into your temple, hesitantly asking the question that’s been on his mind since he first read the fic.
You look up at him with excitement. “Yes,” you whisper as though you’re still not sure this is real.
Rex decides to prove to you it is real, slowly dipping his head to meet your lips. Giving you plenty of time to move away if you wanted, but you don’t. You hold fast, and let him approach, even closing your eyes and tilting your head back to give him a better angle, as the distance closes.
And when he lets his lips touch yours, your hand slips into his buzz cut and he groans against you.
Finally getting to kiss you was heaven. Rex couldn’t get enough. He kept going back for just one more.
“Let me make your dreams come true, ner mesh’la verd!” His voice is hushed as he whispers it against your skin, his arms secure and strong as he holds you tightly.
”Yes, please!” You pant, trying to keep your voice low, aware you are in a tent surrounded by Rex’s brothers who need to look up to their commander without teasing him endlessly about it in the morning.
”I wish we didn’t have to keep quiet,” he winks at you, well aware you like it when you both make a bit of noise.
You pause for a moment, “Well, when we were on watch, you did say there was a shuttle full of spare parts and equipment that needed a pilot to bring it back up to the ship. Does it still need a pilot or two? I think my quarters are undamaged, we could slip aboard the ship and have practically the whole thing to ourselves?”
Rex chuckles against your cheek, checking the ship status on his datapad. “It does still need a pilot. I’ll let Cody know the men on the ground are all his,” he wraps his arms around your waist to scoop up the datapad he’d tossed aside and type out a message as quickly as he can, clicking send without even caring if autocorrect changed anything. “Let’s go, ner Mesh’la Verd!”
*******************************************
The two of you race over to the temporary shipyard, and inform the night guard you and Rex are going to go ahead and bring the shuttle of damaged equipment back to the ship so it’s ready to go in the morning. And off the two of you go, alone in the shuttle as it rises from the planet’s surface and heads into orbit.
Rex turns to you and pulls you into his lap.
You giggle, and kiss his cheek.
”So,” you ask, intentionally suggestively, “I know you said that one was your favorite, but do you have a favorite scenario from my fics that you want to try first?” You can barely believe this is real and you’re actually getting to ask the man you’ve pictured far too many of your fics with the question you’ve always wanted an answer to.
Rex smirks, “I like the shower scenarios…” his eyes continue to monitor the ships progress as he maneuvers it towards the Resolute, but his mind is racing with a thousand dirty thoughts.
“Do I have permission to picture you and I in every one of the stories you’ve written, Sweetheart?” He asks, fervently.
“Yes!” You answer.
He is interrupted by the shuttle bay manager checking in as he maneuvers the ship into the hold.
There is little time to answer as you two disembark the shuttle, exchange nonchalant nods with the hangar bay crew, and make your way through the halls to your personal quarters.
Finally in your room, Rex smiles, “But I think my favorite of the scenarios you’ve written…” his voice darkens a bit as he steps up to you, his eyes finally reflecting his hunger for you as he begins to remove your armor. “Hmm…” Rex playfully debates which of your fics he’d like to recreate first, letting the anticipation make you a little feisty.
You lend a hand, removing his armor as he works on yours.
“I liked the one where you had me kissing up your wrist and arm to your lips, down your neck to your breasts, and then down to your legs and thighs and back up… I admit I reread that one most often… ” He asks, scooping you off your feet, effortlessly.
As he lifts you with one arm behind your back and one hand raising your thigh to his hip, your legs automatically wrap around his hips. Rex pauses and closes his eyes, swallowing hard, and clutching you to him.
“Oh?” You tease.
Rex takes a moment to just try to figure out how to breathe normally again before answering. “What’s your favorite, so far?” He tosses the question back at you, though the rise and fall of his chest is far less collected than his voice. Trying to use his Captain’s skill at hiding any emotion in his voice as a cover when he is actually unraveling quickly.
You laugh lightly as he reaches the bed, tossing the covers back and climbing in with you still wrapped tightly around him. “I think it’s that one too, actually.”
Rex smirks and his eyes gleam in the low light of the room, “May I, then?”
“Why would I ever say no to that?” You laugh, though it fades on your lips as his connect with yours quickly in his hunger.
“I love knowing what you want already, I have a long list of all the items I want to do with you tonight, ner Mesh’la Verd!” Rex pants against your skin.
“But… I don’t know what you like, Rex,” Your concern for his own pleasure fills his heart with warmth. If he didn’t already love you, he certainly does now.
Your legs squeeze more tightly around his waist as his lips trail down your body.
Rex groans, gripping your thigh.
“I like…” he pants, “the way your legs grip me.” He licks a stripe across one breast and then the other.
“I love the way your back arches and you cling to me.” He lightly nips at your abdomen as he moves southward, soothing it with a sensual kiss.
“I love your little noises. And I’m dying to feel you around my fingers, tongue, and cock. And I like the way your writing describes me as protective when I’m on top like this. And I love being able to read about exactly what you want. And I like the feel of your breasts in my hands and mouth. Kark, I could suck on your breasts all day! And I’d make sure to keep it evenly distributed between both breasts,” he teases, moving up to nip at your ear when he says it.
“So you noticed that, huh?” You blush, shyly. You weren’t expecting to ever have a partner that had read your fics before. You hadn’t thought about what was usually contained only in your mind and never said out loud when you had been writing.
He chuckles, “Hard not to notice.” He winks up at you. “Why, is that something you wouldn’t have told me otherwise?” His eyes and tone reflect that teasing, fun side he rarely lets show.
“Maybe…” you admit as he clutches you tightly to him, pressing every inch of skin that he can against every inch of yours.
“Then I’m glad I read your fics. I like already knowing what’s going on in that beautiful mind of yours as I make love to you.” Rex’s breath is hot on your neck as he begins his open mouthed kisses down your shoulder towards your wrist.
A shudder racks your body as you realise this might be a long night ahead of you, but it will also be one of the most fun nights in a long time, and with a man worth every second of it all!
Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it! And NO dropping it into an AI to finish it for me! That’s stealing my work and feeding it to an AI without my consent. It is not okay to give an AI something you didn’t write yourself!
Summary: Finally getting around to adding to my promised collection of Laced with Love (formerly Right Attire) just in time to catch the tail end of Valentines! Please enjoy this latest installment of our very favorite Captain there to sooth and reassure when a partner wants to try something new! 100% just an excuse to write smut with a wonderful Captain! Hehehe! Enjoy! Idea and original concept (ie: the angsty part) explained here in my Hunter one, in case ya missed it and want to see the prompt.
TW: reader is anxious (nervous, having never done this for a partner before), and has slight body dysmorphia; Rex does his best to help coax reader out of that and make sure both partners have fun!
A/N: Rex does his best to be a gentleman, and keep his composure for as long as he can, but I did try to let him go feral, hopefully it succeeded! Rex is such a fascinating character. He’s so confident when it comes to the things he knows well, like battle plans and encouraging his brothers when they feel down, but he gets so shy when he’s faced with something new! Hopefully, this captures that!
Mando’a translations:
Mesh’la = Beautiful
Shebs = ass
You took a deep breath as you prepared yourself in the bathroom. Rex was in the bedroom, sitting on the bed, finishing up a few reports as he relaxes with you.
You’d been together a while, and you always felt so comfortable around Rex. Today was a little different, but not because of anything he did. You wanted to do something a little extra special for him, just because. So you’d bought a nice little lace number, in 501st blue, with a matching wrap as a surprise!
But, this is the first time you’ve ever done this for a man. You’d only attempted a few sexy dresses for a night out, or a little extra teasing for a night in, reveling in whichever made him smile or laugh. Ending up in bed with him after either kind of night was always a bonus. No one had deserved all your efforts quite like this man did. Which is why you wanted to try a little something extra. Picking out which set, customizing, and ordering it was easy, the hard part was putting it on and packing up the courage to just show it to him. You’d never wanted to do this for a partner before, but you knew that you liked dressing a little sexy on rare occasion. Turned out, putting on lingerie for the first time, AND showing it to someone (regardless of who), was significantly harder. Perhaps simply because it was new and you didn’t know if he really liked that sort of thing, or if he would just roll with it because he thought you did? Besides, the last partner you had tried something a little fun and flirtatiously sexy for hadn’t really reacted well… or at all, really. So there was that anxiety working against you too.
As if there wasn’t enough anxiety without it anyways. You sighed quietly.
But for Rex, you wanted to try. So you clung to that, closing your eyes and preparing yourself as you faced your reflection.
Suddenly, a shirtless Rex rounds the corner into the bathroom, eyes focused on the datapad in his hand.
“Hey, Love, I need a second set of eyes on this, will you—” but he cuts himself off when he looks up and finds his lover with an expression of shy surprise on her face as she clutches the robe wrapped around her shoulders a little tighter. It’s both the surprise on her face and the color of the robe that catches his eye. Its blue. His blue!
Rex takes one long look, letting his wide eyes take in the color of the short satin and lace number you were wrapped in, the bare legs and nervous feet, and shy expression. And he pauses to gently set the datapad against the wall outside the door, where it can safely wait for his attention later. Slowly, he stands up straight and puffs out his chest, and offers you a hand, confident lust-filled eyes never leaving your face, needing to do everything in his power to wipe away the nervousness he sees in your eyes.
Hesitantly, you step forward, biting your lip as you try to also keep your eyes on his face, as you reach for his outstretched hand. With a deep breath to settle your nerves, you slip your hand into his.
The corner of Rex’s lips begins to tilt upwards. His thumb rests atop your knuckles, and he gently leads you closer to him. When you’re finally close enough, he kisses your knuckles, then lets the hand holding yours drop to the side where he can intertwine his fingers with yours, thumb rubbing your hand. His other hand curls under your chin, and lifts. His eyes warm with a smile, and wait for yours to do the same in response, before leaning down to place a soft kiss on your lips.
Your eyes flutter closed, but the kiss is over all too soon. You look up at him, to find him studying your expression.
He places another kiss on your forehead as his hand on your chin drops to your shoulder, then slips down to gently tug your hips to his own, and sway slightly like there’s music that only he can hear when he holds you.
You giggle and nuzzle into his neck.
He chuckles and rubs your back, still swaying for a moment. Before both his hands shift to hold your waist, as he stops and looks down at you.
“This is new,” he scoops up one of your hands and holds it out to look down at the wrappings decorating your body. “My color looks good on you.” His voice is deep, hungry, and quiet as he rests his head against your temple and kisses your hand.
You smile and look up at him, biting your lip as you try to hype yourself up.
Rex’s eyes are drawn to the movement of your lips, “hmm, that’s my job,” he breaths. Before crashing his lips into yours and nibbling on your lower lip.
You moan into his lips as he coaxes yours open, your arms slipping around his waist and neck.
Rex breaks the kiss, panting. “Come back to bed with me, Love. Let me take a look at this,” he glances down at the royal blue robe, and then back at your eyes for confirmation.
You nod, breathlessly.
A look of surprise paints your features when Rex wraps one arm behind your back, and leans down, sweeping you off your feet. You cling to his neck, startled by the sudden movement.
“Easy there, Sweetheart. I’ve got you. I won’t drop you, I promise.” He pauses to let your mind catch up with your bodies.
“I know,” you whisper back as he carries you to the bed and nestles you gently into the pillows before climbing over you and peppering your cheeks with kisses. He settles his knees on either side of your hips, and lowers his hips atop yours as his kisses trail from the corners of your lips back to nibbling and licking, as a silent request to makeout.
You groan, granting him the privilege. Your hands gently skim their way up his chest, to cup his face as the two of you share a little more than just the air you breathe.
His hands too, find their way to your face. One slips gently into your hair. Using his abs to hold his weight, his other hand plays with the edge of the robe at your shoulder, tracing it down to the tie that’s kept the rest of you out of view as he requests permission to remove it with a raised brow and a smirk, his usual composure waning rapidly.
You nervously accept. It’s hard to just get rid of the hesitation, but a hungry Rex was the goal, after all.
To reassure you, he trails soft, open mouthed kisses from your lips to your ear and down your neck, whispering assurances the whole way, until you’re groaning beneath him, back starting to arch off the bed.
He slowly tugs at the tie until it slips away.
Then his gentle touch returns to your shoulders, and he plays with the hem between two fingers as he diligently traces slowly but directly down your torso, pulling the robe open with gentle hands, as he watches with rapt attention.
Fingertips tracing a path over each breast, where he knows your nipples are, so he can feel you shiver beneath him.
But when he realizes there’s an extra layer between your nipples and his fingers, he leans back to watch as more of you is revealed to his waiting eyes.
He’s surprised to find more waiting underneath the royal blue robe, and this layer has more detail to it.
Rex’s breath hitches as he notices the way it hugs your body in all the best ways, and his eyes widen with excitement.
He pauses in his unwrapping, to lean forward and kiss reverently along the edge of the lace where it rests against your chest.
You sigh, and his tongue slips beneath the lace for a moment, before he returns to peppering soft kisses along the hemline.
As he does so, he notices the details hidden in the lace and satin - most notably his jaig eyes - amongst other small motifs from your time together.
He kisses each one as he pauses to admire them.
His eyes close as he rests his forehead on your chest, and he groans, having had no idea how hot this could be to see on his partner.
You breathe a sigh of relief, your uncertainty about how he would take this fading away.
And then Rex wipes it all away as he licks a stripe that tickles your nipple beneath the fabric, up your chest and neck until he reaches that hallowed spot just beneath the ear, where his lips latch on and he sucks gently.
You whimper and tilt your head to give him access, as his hands hungrily pull at the rest of the robe, coaxing you up into a sitting position so he can drop it from your shoulders.
To your delight, this little moment of vulnerability, sharing something fun and tease-worthy that’s only for the two of you, seems to have unlocked the passion within Rex. Allowing the Captain’s hard outer shell to begin to fall away as he opens himself to you too.
He clutches you to him with a confident strength as the robe finally slips away, and he cradles the back of your head in his hand, your neck along his strong arms, his mouth hungry against yours.
When a need for air forces your lips apart, his hand begins to stroke up and down your back, and discovers the strappy back of the brassiere.
He pauses to trace the straps across your back as he closes his eyes and catches his breath.
Wrapped in his arms, legs still tucked beneath his own, you nestle in, still panting too. With one hand, you run your fingers over his buzz cut.
“Look at you,” he whispers, leaning back, “This is — you are — I mean — Mesh’la…” his voice trails off, the incredulity that you’d felt the need to do this for him - a mere, disposable soldier, on his eyes - overwhelming his ability to think clearly.
Instead he rests his head against your temple, closes his eyes, and groans loudly as he takes a deep breath.
“Don’t hold back, Rex,” you whisper.
His face lights up with surprise and excitement as his eyes immediately seek yours for confirmation. He’s not sure he heard you right. You want him to just… let go?
“Don’t hold back,” you say again, even quieter than the last time, but he’s sure he heard you correctly this time.
He lifts your chin, searching your eyes for any sign that this isn’t what you really want. But when he finds none, the last remnants of his Captain's demeanor fade away completely, replaced by a deep hunger in his eyes.
He reaches up to cup your face, his thumb stroking over your bottom lip, that currently has all his attention.
And then he’s kissing you like you’re the only source of oxygen in the room and he can't breathe.
You cling to him, reciprocating the need in his tightness.
Your weight fully in his arms, and your own arms further securing you to him, he steps back off the bed, sits on the edge, and maneuvers you into his lap, facing the mirror in the corner, as his hand slips smoothly into your panties, surging down towards the wetness he longs to feel.
Your head lolls back onto his shoulder as your back arches, and he revels in the way your neck curves and your lips fall open at his ministrations, putting all your little noises right next to his ear.
His fingers don’t hesitate to fill the space that’s aching for him.
In response, your canal tightens around his fingers, making Rex groan too.
His eyes rake hungrily up your body as your back arches and you cry out in ecstasy.
“Mesh’la,” he whispers with reverence, seeking that spongy spot deep within.
When he finds it, your legs wrap around his own, and the pitch of your moans near his ear rises to a delightful note.
Determined to get you there as fast as he can, and as often as he can, in thanks for such a wonderfully intimate moment, he rubs small circles deep inside of you. His spare hand shifting from your hip to your breasts, massaging. With the added friction of the fabric, and the determination of his swirling fingers, stars begin to light your vision.
“So soft,” Rex murmurs, entranced, “and so warm and wet.” He’s also panting in your ear, your own climax triggering his own, not to mention making him proud of how well he knows your body.
And with that your body races to a finish, like a ship entering hyperspace. White lights the room as your noises grow louder and your body rightens around him.
As your body begins to relax around him, his fingers slip from your delicate trappings, leaving a wet trail up your navel. He can’t resist tasting, like the last time you baked together and he made a mess with the icing…
He groans again, drawing your eyes in the mirror.
His eyes are closed as he savors the flavor, making sure to clean up every last drop. Slowly, his eyes open, and take a moment to focus on your own in the mirror. His reflection smirks at you around his fingers as they slip from his mouth with a pop.
Rex scoops you into his arms, walking on his knees across the bed to lay you down amongst the pillows. He settles beside you, watching your tired expression find his with a gleam in your eye.
As your panting subsides, Rex props his head up on one arm, and allows the other to toy with the hem crossing your chest, finally really taking a good long look at the emblems emblazoned across the delicate fabric. He’s not sure he’s ever actually seen fabric like this in person. He’s so used to durable materials designed for warfare.
You notice the amazement with which he considers your adornments.
“Is it better when this stays on, Love?” You ask him, genuinely. Though your shoulders give away the slight disappointment that it takes something extra to unlock this side of him. “I thought it might be better. We can do this every time if you’d pref—”
In answer, Rex seals your lips with his own to keep you from saying anything more, as his hands quickly search the entire top until he finds the clip at the front between your breasts.
In seconds, your top has been haphazardly discarded on the other side of the room, and he sucks your nipple into his mouth.
“No, Love,” he mumbles around the nipple in his mouth, groaning, “I love the lace, but not as much as I love you. Showing you that that includes your body, exactly the way it is, will always be a top priority of mine.”
His eyes find yours for a moment, as he licks your nipple lazily. “Let me feel your hunger, my Love.” He whispers against your breast. “I’m used to bruises and scrapes, it’s a normal part of a life like mine. I think it’s time I had a few with good memories attached, don’t you?”
You look at him with surprise, still hesitant to leave a mark.
“What was it you said to me at the beginning of all this? Don’t hold back, right?”
Surprised and speechless you merely nod, panting as his hands massage your chest.
“Ready for round two then?” he asks, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
You can feel the heat rising in your cheeks as you shyly look away.
“Good,” he winks.
“But this time,” you tell him with determination, “you’re cumming with me.”
He laughs, “Don’t worry about me.”
“Rex! I do worry about you, I always will! This is for you, you know,” you tease him back, gesturing at your attire.
His eyes widen, though he had hoped, he hadn’t dared let himself believe that until you said it.
“Then let me not make you wait any longer,” he murmurs against your temple as he leans in to press a kiss.
His hands surge downwards, finding your panties and swiftly sweeping them down your legs and off into some distant part of the room.
His own blacks quickly follow suit, as he crawls over you, mouth trailing across any and every part of you he can reach as he works his way up to look you in the eye.
You can feel his length dance across the spot that’s aching to feel more of him.
He steals one last passionate but brief kiss as he reaches down to line himself up with you.
You gasp as his tip graces your entrance, your gaze locking onto his own as he slowly, slowly pushes in. You swear you can feel every ridge, as he slips inside, soft as velvet. You can’t help it when your walls contract around him in a hungry greeting, pulling him deeper.
With each contraction of your walls, Rex’s steady breathing studders and his eyes widen with glee as your body tugs him deeper and deeper. As he bottoms out, your hands find his shoulders, gripping as tightly as you can, as though you can hold onto this feeling, this moment, forever.
Rex’s breath is shallow, as he watches your expression for a moment, before surging forward to crash his lips into yours. With a groan, his hips begin to thrust into yours. His arms wrap around you, lifting you from the bed slightly as he holds you in place to thrust into. When his cock finds that spongy spot deep within that he had been so skillfully toying with not a moment ago, your nails rake his back…
Rex’s thrusts remain slow and sensual, as his hands roam all over your body, and his mouth wanders from your lips, to nibble on your ear, down your neck, across your shoulders and collar bone, finding a home around your nipple.
It’s safe to say your nails rake his back quite a few times that night, making Rex shiver with delight everytime he remembers it…
The next day….
You met him in the hallway after his morning workout and shower, ready with his briefing on the status of all the planet-wide battles.
But you can’t help but notice the playful way each trooper glances at you as they exit the communal showers, each man once again clad in a fresh set of blacks on their way to armor up for the day.
Rex exits, top half of his blacks in hand, and doesn’t hide the way his eyes trace a lustful path from your toes, slowly following the shape of your calves to your thighs and hips, that he wants nothing more than to squeeze. And on up to the shape of your breasts as he tilts his head and smirks, admiring the curve of your neck and the way you wear your hair. Stepping forward as his eyes find your shocked expression.
He’s never been this open about being in love with you before. Normally he has a Captain’s reputation to uphold, he can’t be seen breaking the rules and having a partner.
But this time, he just grins, slips a gentle hand into your hair, and brings his lips to yours in the most gentle, loving, quick kiss that leaves you breathless.
Someone behind you makes a remark, but you don’t really hear it.
But suddenly Rex is flanked by his best ARCs, as he glares down whatever poor soul was foolish enough to speak.
Beside him, Echo and Fives exchange a glance.
“No one messes with the Captain’s girl, Shiny. Get your shebs [ass] back on duty, double time trooper!”
You stand there aghast as Fives and Echo both wink at you before ushering the rest of the troopers from the hallway. They pause at the end of the corridor, and wait for the two of you.
Rex is holding your chin as he looks at you. Placing another tender kiss to your lips, making it clear he now has no fear of his troopers finding out about the two of you.
You giggle and tilt your head. A silent question that you don’t know how to ask.
He just chuckles, smiling at the floor, his shy side resurfacing now that he is in the presence of people he doesn’t have to be the Captain around.
To your surprise, it’s Fives that answers. “He told us about how much he enjoyed spending last night with you,” a mischievous smirk makes you wonder if he perhaps forced Rex’s hand. Although, based on how Rex is treating you like his queen right now, he doesn’t seem to mind?
Echo fills in, “Fives here made the mistake of leaving a red handprint over the marks on Rex’s back. Rex was too proud of them to let Fives hide them from anyone.”
“Marks?” You glance between the two, searching for answers.
They just chuckle, scratching the backs of their necks, unable to look at you.
What they are hinting at suddenly dawns on you. You might have gripped the Captain a little harder than you thought, and possibly raked your nails down his back at least once…
You bite your lip nervously and step around Rex to look at his back.
Rex watches you out of the corner of his eye as you nervously examine his back.
Sure enough, an angry red handprint is starting to fade on Rex’s shoulder, and crisscrossing beneath it are several sets of parallel lines running down his back and angled across his shoulder blades… scratch marks… from you…
You lean forward and kiss the clustered marks on his back a few times.
“Sorry,” you mumble between kisses.
Rex whips around to face you, and pull you into his arms.
“No.” He says firmly, though he pointedly avoids using his Captain’s voice, “I want to wear your mark all day. If I was allowed to walk around shirtless all day just to show it off, I would. I love you.”
“But what abo—“
“You’re worth it,” he whispers against your lips, sealing it with a firm kiss, before tucking you into his side and walking down the hallway with his two best friends, and his girl, chatting and laughing like the brothers they are.
That night, you sleep in Rex’s bed… in the barracks…
Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it! And NO dropping it into an AI to finish it for me! That’s stealing my work and feeding it to an AI without my consent. It is not okay to give an AI something you didn’t write yourself!
Crosshair x female!reader (she/her pronouns for now, might get spicy later)
Word Count: ~2k
Tantis Rescue AU! I’ve had this idea for ages, and now that S3 has rescued Omega and Crosshair it dawned on me that I never actually posted this one! Seems like there’s no better time to post it than now! (also: TECH LIVES!!)
Summary: (mini-series) Crosshair starts to fall for the woman he’s rescued with. She has learned to read him easier than just about anyone else he’s ever met. He learns her too.
TW: Crosshair has PTSD, and Hunter is still learning how to deal with it. Speaking of, it starts with a flashback to a torture scene… while Crosshiar is still in Hemlock’s custody (well, Hemlock thinks it’s more like ownership, but who needs his opinion anyways); I do mention that they both get back in the fight later, but it’s not a big focus, comparitively
A/N: So, I’ve had this for ages, but I thought I needed more to it before I posted it… turns out it’s pretty complete as is! And now that we’ve actually gotten to see the Tantis exfil and Crosshair and Omega return to the gang, I realized I really needed to just post the darned thing! I just want to say, I didn’t change this to fit anything from S3, it’s been written like this for ages, I just fixed some typos before I posted it, so S3 has not been an influence here!
PS. This is my FIRST Crosshair fic on here!!! WHOOOOOO!!!
PPS. I promise I'll get back to the "Right Attire" posts soon! Just needed to get this one out of my WIPs!
Crosshair banners from @/djarrex, hyperspace banners my own!
He’s barely conscious. Voices enter the room. All are familiar, but not in a good way. But only one has a name he can vaguely remember, something to do with something deadly, like a poison… Hemlock! That was his name. The name sank like a rock in his mind, and took his stomach with it. Nothing good was coming, that was for sure.
But one was new. A female. She seemed as upset as his stomach felt. But despite how queasy he felt, this he needed to see, to understand why she was here and whether he knew her.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. At first, everything was a blur… gradually, his eyes focused on her face. He’d never seen her before, but the fear and pain he saw on her features was more than familiar… and then the memory faded…
Snippets of other memories flash through his mind, all out of order. His mind is beginning to block out large chunks of his captivity…
Hemlock’s voice broke through the haze of it all, “I see those paternal instincts your batch mates displayed still exist, but unfortunately, I need the little girl for another experiment.” He turns to the TK’s standing guard, “Remove her from the room.” Then turns back to Crosshair lying on the table, “Let’s see what other animalistic emotions you tend to display. I know you recently gave up your disdain for, what did you call them, ‘Regs’? How about the civilians you thought you were protecting?” Hemlock once again turns towards the guards in the hallway, “bring the woman in.”
Flashes of moments of both of their agonies as they both did their best to conceal their ‘animalistic tendencies’, as Hemlock put it, flash through Crosshair’s mind. Doing their best not to become attached to the person at the other end of the table, but the need to protect them was as inevitable as if they had been sharing a bunk.
She’d been dozing off against her corner of the cold, hard table, sitting on the floor, arms chained to the corner above her.
Crosshair was sitting across from her, attached to the foot of the table in much the same manner, doing his best to stay awake while she slept. They always took turns, so they’d have warning when Hemlock showed up.
She woke up with a start when Crosshair nudged her with his foot. She looked at him, bracing for bad news, but he simply nodded towarads the door.
“Shield!” Crosshair announced, he could see the corridor more clearly than she could from his spot at the foot of the table.
She reacted instinctively, knowing that word meant protecting her face and neck as best as she could. No sooner had she done so than the wall that had been blocking her view of the corridor was blown away in a blast that rocked the whole room.
When the dust settled she found a rough-looking man staring Crosshair down.
Her head was still ringing from the blast, but it seemed like the man was mad at Crosshair.
Hunter looked down at Crosshair’s battered form, leaning wearily against the wall. “One question for you brother… why? Why did you aim it at me before rescuing the kid?”
There was a pause, while a disgruntled man with a device wrapping around the back of his head knealt down and began drilling away at the cuffs restraining Crosshair.
“I could ask you the same question.” Came Crosshair’s venomous reply.
Both men tensed, like they were preparing for a fight.
“NO!” She shouted, tugging against her restraints, reaching for Cross with her feet in a meager attempt to shield him from the wrath of the long-haired man.
“Here, lemme help you, little lady,” a voice spoke up from beside her, and thick arms reached around her and took ahold of the cuffs around her wrists, easily ripping through the restraints anchoring her to the table, snapping the cuffs in half without hurting her wrists at all. But she barely noticed, as soon as she was free she launched herself across the room and put herself between Crosshair and the tattooed man.
“NO.” She said firmly. “Don’t hurt him.”
“I wasn’t going to, Sweetheart. He’s my brother. Just wanted to knock some sense into him, that’s all.”
“Don’t. Touch. Him.” She backed up towards Crosshair, stumbling, barely able to keep herself on her feet, until her back bumped his chest. Crosshair’s hand found her shoulder, and she knew it was an attempt to steady them both.
“I won’t hurt him.” The tattooed man said. “I promise. I’m Hunter by the way. What’s your name, Hun?”
Crosshair’s grip on her shoulder tightened. A warning. Both to her and Hunter. Reminding them both that she had Crosshair’s protection.
Hunter raised his hands to emphasize his point, “I won’t hurt either of you. But we gotta get you both out of here, it’s a long way, and neither of you look so stable on your feet.” He held out a hand in offering, but the two clung tightly to each other. Strange. Crosshair prided himself of never needing anyone, even his brothers. Clearly, they were used to only having each other and a hard time. Hunter retracted his hand. “I’ll be with you the whole way, I’ll do my best to catch you if you fall.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Crosshair. He’d never told her about his squad, but Hemlock had done his best to pry information about them from him. She knew who they were, and that Crosshair refused to tell anyone about them, but she didn’t know why. She didn’t know if he still trusted them. One nod was all it took to confirm that they were ok, but the anger in his eyes, as he stared Hunter down, told her volumes.
Days later, Crosshair and Hunter end up in a big argument, no one caught how it started or why exactly, but she can’t stand it. She has to step in.
“But you still don’t SEE him, Hunter!”
“You wouldn’t know. You weren’t there.” Hunter defends, his words heavy with his own pain.
“I know— “
“—She knows.” Crosshair’s reply is curt, angry, and pained, and Hunter notices he won’t hold eye contact anymore, but he’s not sure why. He thinks it has to do with that annoying need to get attention only to ignore it when he does have it.
“Hemlock had security camera footage,” she says quietly.
Hunter’s cold, angry exterior begins to soften. “I take it he used it against… when he…uhh…”
“Sorta,” she confirms.
Crosshair is staring pointedly at one spot on the ground. There’s nothing there. But he can’t look at anyone right now. Not when thinking about what the two of them went through back there.
She puts a hand on his arm.
He tenses beneath her touch, but doesn’t push it off.
She steps forward, slowly, and leans her head against his temple.
“We’re both safe now,” Hunter can hear her whisper to him. “I’m okay now.”
What was that second thing she’d said? I’m okay now? Hunter’s mind was reeling. That wasn’t what he was expecting her to say. Had he heard her right? For once, he questioned his heightened hearing.
She turns the conversation back on Hunter to take the attention off of Crosshair so he has a moment to breathe and return to himself.
“Hunter, listen, I know you want Crosshair to communicate more. But you know Crosshair prefers to use actions to communicate instead of words. And yet when he does use actions to communicate, you ignore them.”
Hunter is stunned into silence. He has no idea what to say nor what to look for.
She continues, “You said he aimed his blaster at you before rescuing Omega from the wreckage, and yet you did the same thing back in the training room, right before they destroyed everything.”
She still pets Crosshair’s head and neck, as he hides his face in her neck, “You said Crosshair didn’t care about any of you, even the kid, after he chose the Empire, and yet he still managed to get a message to you, plan 88, remember?… he was caught and tortured immediately after.”
On her shoulder, she can feel Crosshair’s breathing returning to a normal, slower pattern, but he still needs more time, so she continues, “You know Crosshair never misses his mark, he keeps his target in the crosshairs, hence the name. And yet, whenever he found himself fighting against you boys… well, you’re still here. Doesn’t that tell you a lot?”
Hunter is staring at his brother now, worry on his face as Crosshair begins to surface from the woman’s shoulder, but she’s not done yet.
“Do you know how long he waited on that platform on Kamino before the Empire found him? Do you know what it’s like to have that much time alone with your thoughts, and yet he still warned you with plan 88. And you weren’t there when he disappeared in the ice and snow on a frozen world, returning a few days later nearly frozen to death with a dying reg on his shoulder, and then ending his commanding officer when the reg died because no one gave him medical care.”
Crosshair’s eyes were misty and distant as he turned his body towards Hunter, though he still refused to look at him. “He saved me first.” Was all he said.
Hunter stepped forward slowly, placing a hesitant hand on Crosshair’s shoulder and raising his eyebrows to tell him he did want to hear more.
“I stepped on a mine. He saved me first. We were the last troops stationed at the outpost.”
“Just two men to protect an entire outpost?” Hunter asked, trying to understand what his brother had gone through and what the empire’s strategy was in it.
“Raiders wiped out the rest. Empire refused to send more. I was the last—” but Crosshair’s voice broke on the last word, he couldn’t finish it.
Hunter stood there, confused and startled. He’d never seen Crosshair like this. He’d seen him mad and upset as a cadet, but never like this.
The woman gently tugged Crosshair back towards her so she could whisper in his ear.
“Then it’s a good thing you’re still here to remember him, to remember them all. Even the ones you never met. I know we can’t get them back, but we can remember them and what they mean to us, regardless of whether we tell anyone else about it.”
He nodded, and once again hid his face in the crook of her neck as fresh waves of emotion silently racked his body.
Hunter watched, helplessly. He didn’t know what to do. Until she yanked him over by his wrist, and dragged him to sit down on the floor with Crosshair between them.
Unbenounced to the three of them, the others had been hiding just out of sight, but close enough to listen in. Tech got up from his spot, crouched beside Wrecker and Echo in the dark hallway, and quietly walked over to the tangle of limbs. Without saying a word, he took off his chest plate and sat down behind Crosshair, their backs pressing together.
Crosshair did not react, nor give any signal of acknowledgment, but he didn’t need to. Right now, he just needed to let it out.
After a moment or two, Wrecker and Echo entered too, each doing the same as Tech, joining the group without saying anything, just there, leaning against each other. Even little omega emerged from her room and snuggled in between Hunter and cross, Lula tucked in her arms.
It took Hunter a long while to think through what he could say that would help, if anything actually could… until he finally settled on a simple sentence, hoping it would be enough.
“I’m so sorry I was so blind to what you were trying to say, Brother.”
Crosshair’s grip on Hunter tightened.
Hunter took that as a good sign.
“I’ll try to do better,” he offered.
They woke in the morning, still in a giant cuddle pile on the floor of the ship….
Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it! And NO dropping it into an AI to finish it for me! That’s stealing my work and feeding it to an AI without my consent. It is not okay to give an AI something you didn’t write yourself!
Summary: Tech accidentally triggers your body dysmorphia. The Bad Batch team up to prove to you that they all love you dearly. Angsty comfort fic.
TW: This actively talks about body dysmorphia. Tried not to be too specific so it would be more generic and just comforting, but it does start with a kinda mean comment from Tech, he means well tho. No smut or nothing, but since it is potentially triggering for those with body dysmorphia, I am gonna label this as 18+.
A/N: Just felt like this needed to be written. Based on my own personal struggles, but also inspired by a conversation with someone on here who might also struggle with this. Hope this helps at least one person out there.
hyperspace dividers my own, tbb dividers by @/djarrex
Sitting in the cockpit, working on a project, Tech continues what is, to him, a normal conversation with the woman sitting next to him.
“I have noticed you are shaped differently than most women.”
He turns towards the copilot seat where she was sitting to find the seat spinning and vacant. He turns towards the door, only to see her exiting the ship.
Echo appears in the doorway, a flash of anger on his face. “What did you do? Why was she so unhappy?”
“I did not do anything,” Tech blinks at him in confusion.
Hunter appears next to Echo. “He told her she’s ‘shaped differently than other women’.” Of course he heard the whole thing from the other end of the ship, but Tech notices his tone implies that he, Tech, should not have said that.
“To us, ‘different’ is a positive character trait. Why did she leave the ship?” Tech asks, perplexed.
Echo sighs searching for words, but it’s Crosshair who answers, “to nat borns, being too different is bad,” is all he says.
Echo scratches the back of his neck and explains, “Most of them don’t like that ‘different’ is negative, but it takes a lot more work than you think to get rid of an idea that is so deeply ingrained in a culture.” He looks at Hunter and glances towards the open ship door.
Hunter returns the look and nods towards the door, “Go talk to her, we got him,” He gestures at Tech.
Tech blinks at them confused as Echo jogs out of the ship after her. Tech looks at Hunter then Wrecker, awaiting the usual explanation that followed his lack of emotional intellect. But they both seemed hesitant to start.
Over the comms they could hear Crosshair’s voice telling Echo where to find her. Cross was in his favorite quiet place, sitting atop the ship watching their comings and goings like a vulture.
Echo finds her hugging one knee and staring off into the distance atop a rock, overlooking the ocean.
“He didn’t mean—“
“—I know” she cuts him off. “But that doesn't mean I can always control how I react to it. I don’t want to feel this way, but my experience has taught my subconscious to react like this. I wish I could make it stop too, but that takes a lot of practice and a ridiculous amount of time. I’ll get there eventually,” she sighs.
He scoots next to her on the rock and just watches her. She glances at him, wishing he wouldn’t, starting to feel nervous about the way he’s looking at her, turning away to hide her face. That is, until he starts to talk again.
“Has anyone ever told you how beautiful your eyes look when you’re lost in thought?”
She huffs out a small laugh. “Even when they’re starting to get puffy and red?”
“Yes,” the confidence in his voice is unmistakable. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Not that meant it,” she mumbles into her knee.
He pulls her into a tight hug, and they sit there in silence for a while.
Echo’s not sure what to say exactly, all he knows is that there’s a lot more that has to be said before either of them are willing to return to the ship.
Echo pauses briefly as he passes her sleeping form curled in a chair.
Tech watches as Echo’s expression softens, and he just looks at her for a moment. Tech tilts his head to one side, like a tooka trying to see if the world makes more sense from a different angle (Tech finds it amusing to take these things literally and figuratively). As he watches, Echo leans down and presses a gentle kiss to the top of her head, and whispers something in her ear. She stirs slightly but doesn't wake. Echo stays put, brushing a hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear and petting her head until he’s sure she’s back out.
Tech feels a pang as he watches. Then his vitals monitor beeps at him. He looks down at his datapad, eyes scanning quickly, looking for the results from the algorithm he wrote to help him connect the way his body reacts to the emotions he struggles with. Sure enough, at the bottom of the screen, his “most likely emotion” algorithm flashes a single word at him: Jealousy.
When she’s settled back down, Echo continues walking to the cockpit doorway where Tech stands.
Echo, “I think we got lucky she was willing to come back onto the ship.”
“She’s not really back,” Crosshair’s voice snakes it ways into their minds, voicing the one thing they’re all worried about and prompting them all to look at her, curled into a tight ball, her head slipping onto her knees.
“She is sad,” Tech analyses. “I did not realize what I said would affect her this much, nor this negatively.”
“I think it brought up old stuff for her. She’s kinda like you, Tech. She needs evidence in order to believe something is true,” Echo notes.
“You are suggesting that I have to prove to her that being different is a good thing?” Tech asks. “I have ample evidence that she already knows that, but I do not understand why she did not take my statement in that way.”
Again, Echo sighs, “When I went after her, she told me… she’s spent most of her life just wanting to be as normal, as pretty, as the other girls, and all she ever got was a lifetime of evidence proving that she wasn’t.” Echo’s voice was quiet. He didn’t like saying it any more than they liked hearing it.
There’s silence as they all take this in. Crosshair had joined them, leaning in the doorway, still watching her sleeping form as they talked.
“But,” Tech is confused, he has a datapad full of evidence to the contrary, “we all react to her in ways that show how we feel about her. Do you mean to say she is incapable of seeing that?”
Echo chuckles darkly, gaze drifting to the floor as he scratches the back of his neck. He wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly. He searches for a nicer way to explain it to Tech’s analytical mind.
“Yes,” Crosshair got tired of waiting for someone else to answer, “Nat born women are conditioned to doubt.”
Tech opens his mouth to protest, he wants to know what she is doubting, specifically.
But Echo starts talking first, “Nat borns don’t get a choice in the cultural conditioning that plagues them any more than we get a say in how the Kaminoans’ conditioned us. It’s up to us to prove to her that she just isn’t seeing the full picture.”
Tech blinks at the two of them, hoping someone will explain exactly how to do so and what exactly she is conditioned to think, but they don’t. To their surprise, Wrecker, who had been napping in the cockpit, is the one who answers.
“Don’t hide anythin’.” His voice is surprisingly quiet, his expression soft. They don’t often get a chance to see Wrecker this gentle.
They all look to Echo, he has more experience with women than any of them (except maybe Cross, but it’s not like he’s going to explain it to them unless he is forced to), not to mention more experience with the emotions of their brothers and the trauma of his own. Echo nods in agreement, “every glance, every time you want to brush her hair out of her face, or pull her into a hug just to feel her close to you. Don’t hold back. She needs to see it. But for now let’s let her sleep. Hopefully that will help a little.”
Tech finally gets a chance to talk to her the next morning. He had been hoping a fresh day would wash it all away, but it looks like today might be harder than he anticipated. She’s just laying in her bunk, curled into a tight ball on her side, hugging a pillow to her chest, staring off into the distance, a lost expression on her face. As he sits down on the bed by her feet she hides her face behind the pillow.
“I only meant……….” He sighs “To us, being different is good. I didn’t know nat borns don’t see it that way. I apologize.”
It’s quiet for a few minutes.
“I have never experienced sexual attraction to a being until I met you.”
She is still quiet.
He’s racking his brain for some way to comfort her. He’s no good at this part, usually emotional reactions were Wrecker’s department. So what would Wrecker do? His mind travels back to when they were cadets and he had yet to get his emotions under control. There were more than a few nights when he cried himself to sleep on Wrecker’s shoulder. Wrecker used to rub his back and tell him he’d never let the Kaminoan’s hurt Tech. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done, so telling her he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her wasn’t an option. He felt like he already had.
Touch! That was it! She usually responded well to the everyday touches from Wrecker, Hunter, and Echo. So he reaches out and gently places a hand on her knee. She’s wearing sleep shorts, and had tossed the covers off, so Tech’s hand sits directly on her skin. He didn’t usually go for touches like this, because he didn’t understand them, but this one felt like the right thing to do, so he went with it, starting to rub, slowly, up and down on her calf. She didn’t react, but she also didn’t push his hand away.
“Is this okay?” He asks, tentatively.
“Yeah,” she mumbles into the pillow.
He sighs and slumps a bit as he relaxes a little.
They sit there in silence for a few moments, just his hand running up and down her leg.
Tech sits up a little straighter, a look of eureka on his face.
“I can prove it,” he offers.
Finally, she begins to peek out from behind the pillow, and he knows this crease on her brow is curiosity.
“I can prove that I find you sexually attractive.” He clarifies. She just looks at him, curiosity piqued, though not like he’s used to seeing when she’s found something she’s excited to learn more about. Those are his favorite moments with her. When she’s excited to learn something new, and they can talk about the possibilities and implications that has on their day to day life, rapid fire. Learning more about the universe together. He vows to find a way to bring those moments back as soon as possible. They both need it.
He pulls his datapad out and brings up some data. “This data shows my vitals from the moment we met, overlaid on the footage I was recording so you can see the implications of visual stimulation on my vitals.” He sends it to her.
Her datapad lights up, it sits next to her head beneath the pillow that still hides him from view. Tech can see the light from under the pillow and watches as the pillow shifts a bit as she picks it up and looks at it.
After a while the pillow shifts again and the light goes away as she puts the datapad back down. She peers at him over the top of the pillow. She doesn’t have words to say anything. He takes that as a sign that he’s the only one who needs to keep talking right now.
“It took me a while to figure out what I was feeling. You know that I do feel emotions, but I struggle to understand them. But I compared it to the data I have of how my brother’s reacted to you and asked them about what they were feeling and how they could tell. I discovered that we have all become rather smitten with you, myself included.”
“That’s bound to happen considering I’m the only woman you’ve been around for months, and probably the only one you’ve been around for an extended period as grown men,” she mumbles.
“But that would take several months to begin to show an effect, yes?”
“Yeah…?”
“I can prove that our feelings began during our first mission with you. I can pinpoint the exact moment for most of us. I am always monitoring our vitals, so any spike in heart rate, or hormone levels I have recorded.”
He sends her his documentation, where he was attempting to understand what they were feeling. Complete with notes about ‘Echo explained that this is common during human attraction’ and ‘Hunter tells me this is a normal reaction to seeing a beautiful woman’ and even ‘Crosshair has indicated that I should talk to her about this’.
“You now have access to the file so whenever it is updated, you will be notified. I tend to update that one quite often. I hope this is a sufficient way to apologize. I am not sure how else to do so.”
“I’m sorry, Tech,” her voice is timid and quiet.
“Why are you apologizing?” Tech asks, nose scrunched, he does not understand.
“I’m sorry I walked out on you without saying anything.”
“I have come to the realization that when topics may be triggering, it is often easier to simply leave the room. I surmise that is why you left?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t want to force her to tell him more, so he just stayed quiet, hoping she might volunteer more information if she felt comfortable doing so.
“I never wanted to be this different,” is all she says.
“I like your ‘different’,” Tech volunteers.
“Is that you talking, or your brothers? What did they tell you to say to me? How much pity did they recommend you bring to the table?” Her tone of voice suggests she is getting mad again.
Tech’s eyes widen and he shakes his head rapidly. “No! Echo said to never pity someone. He said pity only hurts people. He made us all swear never to pity you for anything. I did not mean to imply that. I like your different, I mean that.”
“Sorry,” she whispers, sinking into the pillows again.
Again his mind reaches for something to help comfort her. He doesn’t like how she seems to be conditioned to apologize so often for things that are his mistake and not hers. Again, touch finds its way to the forefront of his mind. So he reaches out physically this time, for the hand resting on top of the pillow she still clutches.
His hand gently slides underneath her own, threading his fingers through hers. He’s struck with the urge to kiss her hand. He’s not sure why. He’s never felt this before. He tries to hold back.
Until Echo and Wrecker’s words surface amidst the confusion in his mind again, ‘don’t hold back’… ‘don’t hold back’… ‘don’t hold back’…
So he stops trying to hold back and lets go, and leaning forward, lifting her hand slightly, to press a soft kiss to the back of her hand. He doesn’t mean to let it linger, but he’s never felt this way before and he wants to remember it forever.
She looks at him with surprise. And then smiles a little. His heart skips a beat. Again, his vitals chart blinks at him, drawing his attention from her eyes. He laughs softly when he sees the new “most likely emotion” blinking at the bottom of the screen, so he shows it to her.
‘Adoration’, the blinking word reads. This time the smile doesn’t leave her face. It still hasn’t quite reached her eyes, but it’s starting to get there. As she stares in disbelief at the word on his screen, a new message from Echo pops up at the top of the screen.
Tech feels it buzz, but doesn’t take the datapad back, knowing now how important that one word is to her.
Her brow scrunches when her gaze drifts to the message from Echo.
She raises a finger to tap on it, but stops, realizing it’s not her datapad.
“You may open it, if you wish,” Tech offers. “I wish to show you I trust you.”
She smiles, the turbulence inside her beginning to settle again as she taps on the message from Echo.
As the message opens, she begins to shift. Moving the pillow around so she can sit up. As she settles, her hip presses into his own. He does not protest. He likes this touch. He moves to hold the datapad between them so they can both see it. It’s a photo of a beautiful waterfall sent to the group chat with the caption, “you guys would love this place”. He and Hunter were out scouting the camp site while they await their next set of orders.
From the increase in noise just outside the ship it seems that Wrecker is excited to go exploring.
“Would you like to go on a walk?” Tech asks.
She nods, squeezing his arm to her side briefly, whispering a quick “thank you” into his ear. He looks up at her happily as she stands up, letting his gaze linger on her as she bounces to find some civilian clothes to change into. She spots his look and pauses for a moment, confusion on her face.
“I like your happy, too,” he tells her. “You know we pride ourselves on being different. It was meant to be a compliment. I did not understand how sentient beings could be considered attractive until you joined us.”
She smiles at the floor, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“I like your shy, as well,” he adds.
She giggles.
…‘Don’t hold back’… he’s learning what that means. And this time he wants to hug her. So he stands up and opens his arms to her, a question on his brow.
She beams and throws herself into his arms. He wasn’t quite prepared for her enthusiasm. It sends them both back a few steps, until his legs hit the bunk and his hand reaches for the one above to stabilize them.
Today might be okay after all.
When the two of them arrive outside they find the commotion was Wrecker putting together a picnic. Crosshair pretends he didn’t help. They all know he did, but they let him think they believe him. Donning the packs Wrecker holds out, the four of them hike their way out to the coordinates Hunter sent them.
After they’ve eaten, as they are enjoying the sunlight and time off, Crosshair stops her for a moment, tilting her chin up to look deep into her eyes. Where confusion paints hers, his show only confidence and lustful smirk. In a split second the moment is over, he places a kiss on her forehead and walks away like nothing happened. His brothers pretend they didn’t see. Moments later, her datapad lights up with an update from a document of Tech’s. It’s the document he sent her earlier, the one filled with all his evidence that they all adore her. The newest entry is a snippet of a video of her and Crosshair from just a moment ago. She glances at Tech and nods a shy ‘thank you’.
That evening, Tech exits the cockpit to find her laying with her head in Echo’s lap as he pets her hair and they both study their datapads. Again, Tech feels a pang of jealousy, and it is once again confirmed by the flashing word at the bottom of his screen.
He sits down by her feet, pretending to be enraptured by something on his datapad too. She looks over at him and smiles, he returns his signature half smile, with half lidded eyes.
Hesitantly, she stretches out a foot and places it in his lap, biting her lip as she looks at him to ask if this is okay.
Tech holds her gaze and places his hand on her leg, stroking it just like he did before in answer to her question, and letting the hand holding his datapad rest on her ankle. Tech has never been so intimately close to a woman’s ankle before. He’s seen her’s plenty of times, she likes wearing shorter things that let her ankles breathe from time to time, but he’s never had a chance to really memorize every curve of them before, no matter how archaic a fascination with ankles may seem, it’s new to him, and he enjoys it.
Echo glances over, to exchange ‘told you so’ looks with Tech, but Tech is still looking at her, fascinated by the studious look on her face as she goes back to reading something on her datapad, still biting her lip as her mind returns to her work.
Instead Echo exchanges one with Hunter, who has just entered the ship, brushing rain from his ruggishly handsome locks.
Hunter stands in the doorway for a moment, before stepping forward and placing a kiss to her shoulder, then heading to the fresher to find a towel for his hair.
In Echo’s lap, he can feel her cheeks warming as she tries to suppress a small smile. This is new to her too, but who would say no to 5 sweet, handsome men doting on them?
Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it!
Summary and A/N: Read a fic the other day, and I wanted to read more similar stories, but there weren’t really any more like it… so I wrote my own! Inspired by this fic by @deewithani who kindly was totally fine with letting me add the inspo link here! I felt like we all needed something happy to read and Fives has been on my mind lately… so hope at least one person enjoys this too! Just sorta cranked it out because I was inspired and wanted to see Fives get a chance to have a life after war filled with love, with Echo, and with Rex, and I wanted a future for the little clones we know exist but who never fought in war because they hadn’t been out of their grown tubes very long… so have some cuteness and cuddles!
PS this is a different Fives Lives AU than my other fic from a few weeks ago
TW: not much? Uh, Fives lives, has a long-term partner, and this is set as though he and Rex and Echo are leading the clone resistance we see beginning in the Bad Batch. Added in a few references to characters I couldn’t fit in the fic too! Could be read as though it’s just Fives and the Reader and Rex and Echo are the best friends of the family, or it could be read as though it’s poly, totally up to you as the reader to interpret it however feels right to you! I just wanted to make sure the 501st trio wasn’t cruelly separated anymore, so have a cute little family fic! Just cuddles and cuteness and fluff! Though it is still a bit suggestive (it's Fives, that's totally unavoidable), so still NSFW, tho I surprised myself by actually avoiding writing smut in a Fives fic... but still enjoy the snuggles and cuteness and suggestive fluff!!!
blue dividers by @/djarrex! banners are my own!
“How are we gonna tell Echo?” Fives asked, gazing happily at the 5 small, peacefully sleeping faces scattered across the room like spilled tookas.
You, the woman in his arms grinned, “Leave that to me!” You kissed his cheek with a grin.
Fives nuzzled into your shoulder. He loved the way you balanced him out and always remembered to consider Echo in your plans as well, especially now that the war was over and the operation to rescue all their brothers was underway.
“He’s gonna tell us 2 is more than we can reasonably handle.” Fives comments.
“He was also a cadet with a squad of 5 once, remember? He knows the bond you boys have. He might protest, but we will make him understand. Besides, they’re too little to separate them, that would have only traumatized them for life, and I couldn’t do that. You saw their eyes when they looked up at us and asked if they could stay together. You couldn’t say no either,” you poked him comedically.
Fives chuckled, and hugged you tighter to his chest. “Yeah, and I wouldn’t change it for the whole galaxy!”
They stand there, just watching the small sleepers for a few minutes.
“How old do you think they are?” Fives asked, excitedly.
“They can’t be much older than 4, in normal years. They have well developed language skills, but they’re still working on hand-eye coordination. So… probably about 2? Likely decanted not long after the war started… maybe around the time you and Echo shipped out for the first time?” You reasoned.
“Not long before we met you,” Fives kissed your cheek playfully and you giggled quietly, squeezing the strong hands wrapped around your middle.
“We’re gonna have to get beds for them tomorrow,” you whispered, eyes glazed over as you worked through the logistics of having 5 new additions to the family.
“Mmmmm, sounds like a tomorrow problem then,” Fives whispered, whisking you off your feet, “They look comfortable where they are, they’ll be fine for tonight.”
“They’re on the floor, Fives,” you chuckled lightly, wrapping your arms around his neck.
“They’re used to it, we all slept anywhere anytime. At least they’re all sleeping at the same time.” He told you, closing the door to your bedroom behind him as he carried you to the bed. “And you were so good with them, Cyar’ika. I could barely resist you all day.” He breathed into your chest as his lips trailed across your skin, sighing hungrily. “My turn!”
As Echo strolled across the base on this beautiful evening, a noise in the hanger bay caught his attention. Odd, no one should be in the hangar bay at this hour. There were no surprise missions that he was aware of, though they had just rescued a large quantity of clone cadets from an Imperial facility the day before. The little ones were supposed to have all been shipped off to Alderaan and Pandora, but perhaps they miscounted? He’d have to comm Fives and let him know if he found one still here. Fives and his girlfriend had been so excited to get to rescue young clones.
He followed the continuation of the noise, and discovered it changed from the drumming of what was presumably small running feet, into the sound of larger stomping strides accompanied by a lot of giggling.
The noise led him to the ship Fives and his partner had claimed as their own.
Echo called to them from the open ramp, “Everything alright in there?”
“Oh, Echo! Is that you?” A woman’s voice answered him over the laughter, “Come in! We could use a hand right now, actually,” she giggled.
Echo hurried into the ship, worried. You never asked for help, but then again it sounded like you had been laughing at the time? He rounded the corner and froze.
Well, that was the last thing he’d been expecting to see, but in hindsight he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been expecting it. Fives always had been good with kids, and so were you.
The room was filled with commotion, mostly in the form of Fives, in full gear, stomping around and growling like he was pretending to be a big, scary monster, while trying his hardest not to burst into laughter. He was happier than Echo had ever seen him.
Fives had 3 small cadets clambering on him. One on his back, giggling wildly, and one wrapped tight around each of Fives’ legs, both squealing with joy.
Fives was laughing hard, especially as he made eye contact with Echo across the room, but it only lasted for a moment as one of the cadets lost their grip on his knee and tumbled to the floor, still giggling.
“Oops!” Fives chuckled, swooping the small puddle of giggling child off the floor and up into the air. “Aaaaaand UP we go!”
Echo could barely process what was going on, as you turned to him from the table behind where Fives and the 3 little ones now played.
There was another one in your arms, Echo noticed.
You beckoned Echo to you, and he obediently trotted over, though he was vaguely aware that it was an autopilot response from working so closely with you for so long.
The delightedly confused look on Echo’s face as he approached made you laugh too.
“Here, hold this one for me,” you instructed, depositing the one that had been on your hip into Echo’s arms.
Echo took the proffered child. It stared up at him with wide, familiar eyes. This was definitely one of the clone children you had all rescued in the days prior. The child nibbled on a large cookie as it stared calmly up at him. Echo blinked at it for a moment, content to just watch the child, unsure what it would do, knowing it could see that he was so different.
He and Fives had been this small once. He didn’t remember it, but knew it was deep in his past somewhere. He felt like he could see his own memories reflected in the wide, curious eyes of the child he held. But he wondered how he looked to a kid now, so many metal parts adorning his body, but without those parts, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to rescue and now hold this child today. Echo could feel the conflict within him flickering in his eyes as he watched the smol bundle in his arms.
After a moment, the child seemed to decide he was an acceptable pillow too, and it nestled into his shoulder and went back to watching their brothers goof around the room.
Echo looked up, for you, vaguely aware that if you needed him to hold this one that meant there was something else you were up to.
He spotted you standing on the counter, fetching yet another child from atop the conservator, where it seemed, it had been breaking into a box of cookies.
“Hey Echo, Fives, I need you to—“ Rex rounded the corner, and reacted much the same as Echo. He froze, eyebrows raised, as he watched Fives tumble into a big cushy chair in the corner while being careful not to smoosh any of the kiddos clinging to him as they all laughed joyously.
Rex’s gaze continued around the room to Echo, standing behind Fives with a child in his arms, scomp securely tucked under its small bottom, hand rubbing up and down the kids back as it drifted to sleep on his shoulder, half-eaten cookie dropping from its hand onto the table Echo had strategically positioned himself next to. And then Rex spotted you, in the galley of the ship, another child draped over your arm in a dramatic pout, its conquest - a box of cookies - clutched tightly in its little hands as you clambered off the counter.
Rex shook himself to his senses and scrambled to protect you and the kid on your way down.
“Thanks, Rex,” you smiled up at him, patting his cheek, a happy grin like he’d never seen before on your face.
Your attention quickly turned to the child in your arms, as you put your other hand on your hip and gave it a playfully, scornful look. “You gonna eat the whole box yourself, little one?”
It paused for a moment, seemingly thinking through the situation for the first time.
Rex laughed, he remembered a similar lesson in his past. He knelt down to look at the kid when he spoke, “Always make sure you think things through before just running with it, kid. That way you know exactly what you want before you get there.” He chuckled.
You, Fives, and Echo all laughed hard at that.
“Oh, look who the mischievous uncle turned out to be!” You chided, laughter still ringing from your lips as you shifted the kid in your arms into a more comfortable position on your hip, facing outwards, but gripped in both arms.
The kid’s eyes lit up and he shoved a hand back into the cookie box and produced yet another cookie, but this time he held it out to Rex.
“Awwwww! That was very sweet of you, Moxy! There ya go, pay off Uncle Rex for his mischievous advice! Already learning how bribes work! You’re definitely related to Fives, that’s for sure!” You laughed.
Rex laughed too, taking the cookie with a small thanks as heat rushed to his face. He hadn’t meant to be that Uncle, but then again, after working with Skywalker, Kenobi, and Tano, and the entirety of the 501st for so many years, maybe their bad habits had worn off on him a bit.
Fives appeared at your elbow, one child under his arm, one still clinging to his leg, and one perched on his shoulders with its hands on his cheeks and hair, braced by his other hand at its back.
“See, they could totally pass for being our kids!” He grinned playfully, humming seductively as he pressed a long kiss to your cheek and then one to your neck.
“EWWWWW!” The kiddos chorused.
Echo and Rex laughed as you stole a kiss from Fives’ lips as he grinned, wildly.
“Well that’s good, because they are our kids, now!” You winked back at him.
“That’s my girl!” Fives cheered.
“How are you gonna care for…” Echo paused to doublecheck his headcount, “five cadets?”
“Children, Echo, they are not cadets anymore, they’re kids! And I’d say it’s a darn good thing we generally have at least 4 adults in here to handle it, don’t you think?” You returned, pointedly, but still smiling and laughing.
Echo just hugged the child in his arms tighter. Resting his cheek on its little head as he turned bashful. He knew Fives had chosen the right woman, she always remembered the things that were important to Fives, including Echo. And she wasn’t afraid to put her children in the arms of a man with 3 out of 4 metal limbs. Echo was grateful for her trust, for it made him trust himself more too.
The little one on Fives shoulder let out a big, long yawn, unaware that its hand had made its way to cover one of Fives’ eyes. But Fives had no intention of protesting, he was too delighted to find himself surrounded by kids of his own.
Rex chuckled, and reached up to lift the child off Fives’ shoulders.
As soon as it was in Rex’s arms, it immediately snuggled into his shoulder, trusting him instantly after seeing him interact with the other adults in the room so easily. Rex melted.
You and Fives exchanged a glance. Fives was glad he’d let you handle this part and that you’d let it just happen naturally. And you were right that the Fett line did seem to have a soft spot for children.
You and Fives exchanged a glance as he scooped up the child wrapped around his ankle, the two of you moved instinctively towards the comfy chair he’d dropped into with the kids earlier, collecting pillows and blankets from around the room on the way to it. Echo and Rex imitated you, recognizing the all too familiar nesting pile habits of their battalion.
Instinctively, all 3 men gathered to nestle around you, creating a circle for you and the little ones to snuggle into.
To your surprise, Fives found a way to nuzzle into your shoulder, despite the two small ones he had in his arms.
“They are darn cute, I’ll give ‘em that,” Echo muttered, watching the one that was still clinging to him.
“That’s Zed, we call him that because he’s always sleepy,” a tiny voice mumbled from Rex’s chest.
You all laughed again.
“And what’s your name, kid?” Rex asked, quietly.
But the only answer he received was a soft snore.
“Mmmm, now I’m hungry from all that playing around,” Fives lifted his head, and peered into the box Moxy was still clutching where he lay on your chest. “Anything left in there?”
You lifted your head to look in the box too, “Might actually be half a box still! I thought he’d eaten them all. Grab me one too, while you’re at it?”
Fives reached into the box and held up a cookie for you so you didn’t have to take your hands off the kids splayed on your chest and snuggled between you both.
You took a bite, and he shoved the rest of it into his own mouth.
“Thanks, Love.” You giggled and pecked his cheek, before returning your attention to Echo and Rex. “How are you gents doing? Content to snuggle there for a while? I’d rather not wake them if we don’t have to, or they’ll be running up the walls for another few hours just because they want to stay awake.”
Rex and Echo exchanged delighted glances and hummed their answers, nestling in for the night.
You turned back to Fives, “See? Easy!” You told him, kissing his forehead.
He laughed. “Which part? Telling Rex and Echo, or handling 5 kids?”
“Well, now that we have Rex and Echo here, both!” You told him, victoriously.
Fives stole another kiss from your lips.
A rustling noise and a shifting of the box in the small clone’s arms as Fives smiled against your lips told of his real plan: hiding a cookie theft with a kiss.
He broke away from your lips only to triumphantly stuff the entire cookie in his mouth.
You scoffed at him, playfully.
The box rustled again, and you raised a brow holding eyecontact with Fives.
He returned the look, puzzled, half a cookie still sticking out of his mouth as he tried desperately not to sprinkle cookie crumbs into the hair of the small brothers in his arms.
You both looked down to find Echo’s hand in the box.
He looked up at you sheepishly, eyes wide at getting caught, blinking owlishly at you. And then he broke into the same mischevious grin Fives had worn not five minutes before and retreated with a cookie of his own.
You were trying desperately not to laugh, else you’d jostle the numerous small heads and three adult ones currently leaning on or near you.
“Would you like a cookie too, Rex?” You offered, producing another one from the box.
“Well, I’m not gonna say no,” Rex teased.
“Good, as long as you boys all get the extra large quantities you need, we’ll be in good shape.” You giggled, handing over the tasty treat, and fetching another one for yourself too.
The three men exchanged sheepish looks.
“I know, you boys all eat more than the average person. And I’m glad of it. Food rarely goes bad around here. But we might need to find a steady supply of large quantities of food so we don’t have to go shopping every single day.” You could already imagine it, not only would you enjoy the view of each of the handsome men crouched in front of the conservator day in and day out just like you had since you joined them, but more than likely, they’d always share the space with a smaller version of themselves each time now too. The thought put a smile on your face as you stared deep into Fives’ eyes, more than happy with your joint, spur of the moment decision to keep a whole squad of cadets.
Echo hummed next to you, “I’ve got a few ideas already,” he yawned. “Never fear, Uncle Echo is here! Hmm, I like the sound of that. Uncle Echo. And Omega is gonna adore these little guys…” Echo leans over and kisses your cheek too.
Fives laughs at that.
“Hmm, then maybe I should try to be less mischievous, you lot already have that covered,” Rex also uses the opportunity to kiss your hand, and you bite your lip.
Fives steals another passionate kiss from you, grinning into it. “Maybe Omega can babysit when we need a night that’s just the two of us on occasion,” Fives nudges your cheek with his nose.
Echo laughs into your side. “I think Wrecker and Hunter would be delighted to help her wrangle the whole little squad. I’ll bring you to Pabu in the morning so they can meet them.”
“We haven’t even had the kids for 2 full days yet, Echo,” You chuckle.
“We have a big family, we can’t help it,” Fives answers. ”I want all the guys to meet them. We’ll do Pabu in the afternoon. Let them take around this base in the morning. It’ll be fun,” he mumbles, sleep starting to take hold of him too. ”Howzer promised to give me some tips he learned from the Twilek family he worked with for so long tomorrow. Pabu can be a dinner thing.”
“I’ll tell Hunter we’re bringing dinner tomorrow then,” Rex yawned.
Suddenly Echo held out a datapad, over the bundle of sleepy faces. “Smile you three, we need a holo of this.”
But you and Fives could only look at each other, with the biggest grins as you pressed your foreheads together in a keldable kiss, proud of your little family.
“Could you two get any cuter?” Echo nudged you playfully.
Zed, nestled between you and Echo, stirred in his sleep.
“Shhh, sleep time now, gents, we can finish planning in the morning,” you instructed, secretly admiring that you had just surrounded yourself with identical faces of men and boys you very much adored. You hummed contentedly.
“Just one more kiss,” Fives whispered mischievously, sneaking a peck at your lips before snuggling in for the night.
Omega gasped loudly, bouncing on the balls of her feet when she saw Echo, Rex, Fives, and Fives’ partner exiting the ship together, wrangling a whole miniature squad of their own at their knees and bundled in their arms, and boxes of what appeared to be take out in various bags and hands.
“Baby brothers!” Omega gushed, scooping up the nearest one.
Wrecker scooped her and the little one up into a big hug, and carried them over to the tree in the middle of the square, then picking up the small ones clinging to his belt to put them up on the grass beside her.
Echo decided to take a page from your book, and just straight up handed one of the kids to Hunter without saying anything.
Hunter took the kid and just watched it in awe for a moment.
“Are you a brother too?” The kid asked.
“Hmm?… yeah… yeah I am, kid,” Hunter beamed.
The kid smiled and tucked himself into Hunter’s chest.
Hunter visibly melted, closing his eyes and cradling the child gently in his arms.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself staring at a smug Echo.
“Told you, you had a soft spot for kids.” Echo patted him on the back and walked away to join Wrecker and Omega as they taught the kids how to climb a tree.
“That’s Zed, he likes snuggles,” You told Hunter from somewhere behind him.
Hunter turned to face you, and found you standing there with Fives wrapped around you from behind.
“And… they’re your kids now?” Hunter asked, incredulous. Looking like he would never be ready to give Zed back to you.
“Yeah, we’ve been tracking down where the young clones were taken when Kamino was decommissioned. First rescue was a few night ago. Two ships full of little ones ready for homes of their own went to Pantora and Alderaan the day before yesterday.”
“We couldn’t help but keep this lot when their little voices asked us to be their parents,” Fives chimed in.
“They asked you to be their parents?” Hunter seemed almost jealous, if you were reading him correctly.
“Do you want us to bring a batch here?” You asked.
Hunter just looked at the little one in his arms, content to be held as it watched people move around the square.
“That’s a yes,” Fives answered for him.
Hunter gave Fives a look. “I see why Echo calls you the mischievous one,” he comments, a brow raised.
Rex laughs loudly, “Oh. No. Echo is just as mischievous.”
“Like that?” A snide voice joins the conversation as Crosshair approaches, making sure to keep some distance from the kid in Hunter’s arms, as he jabs a toothpick towards the tree before returning it to his lips.
You all look over to discover Echo in the tree with the young ones, while Wrecker and Omega protect them from below.
“Exactly like that,” Rex agrees, shaking his head at his trooper's antics.
“Anyways, would you like to babysit them sometime?” Fives asks Hunter and Crosshair with a sly grin.
“No.”
“Yes!”
Hunter and Crosshair answer at the same time, Crosshair glares at Hunter.
“Come on, Cross. You’ll warm up to them eventually.” Hunter prods, pointedly watching the kid in his arms instead of Crosshair.
“Omega was different,” Crosshair protests. “Like us.” He states as though he’s trying to convince himself not to get attached to the small face clinging to Hunter’s collar.
“Uh huh,” Hunter is not convinced, he knows his brother too well for that.
…Later you swear you spot one of the kids gifting Crosshair a flower he picked from the tree, and you’re pretty sure Crosshair wears it in his shirt pocket all evening.
But it’s hard to say for certain, especially when Fives sweeps you off your feet and carries you into your ship, heading straight for the bedroom…
Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it! And NO dropping it into an AI to finish it for me! That’s stealing my work and feeding it to an AI without my consent. It is not okay to give an AI something you didn’t write yourself!
Summary: while out on a mission with Rex and Echo (post-TBB s3), you discover something you’d all thought you’d lost a long time ago
TW & A/N: angsty story, but happy ending! Fives has had a rough time, something along similar lines to Echo’s story… so expect mods… sorry. I swear this whole thing came to me in like a waking fever dream sorta thing, it was outta the blue when I was just relaxing one day and I had to let the story become words on a page so I could share a hug with all of you guys <3
dividers by: @/djarrex
“Ok, I’m in the armor…ry…” your eyes are wide, unsure of what you’re seeing.
This room had been labeled “armory” on the schematic Echo was able to get ahold of. But aside from a single rack of blasters and droid poppers in the middle of the room, visible from the door, this did not look like an armory. It was a huge room, tubes of liquids lined the ceiling connecting everything. And the walls… there was no way this was any kind of armory.
The walls are lined with… well, some strange type of cryotubes… filled with familiar, identical faces, identical personalized faces. Faces of troopers who’ve already seen battle, already been out there in the thick of it long enough to individualize themselves and bare the scars of many tough battles. But what are they doing here? And why was this room labeled armory in the schematics if they aren’t… oh… OH… KRIFF… as if this couldn’t get more horrifying than it already was….
You step closer to the pods as you walk further into the room, needing more information.
Each of these men has a pair of blinking lights just under the skin of their temples, as though they are droids sitting on their chargers, waiting for a signal.
And many of them seem to have mods, or evidence of mods, or other scars from intense surgery that wasn’t properly healed on or around vital organs.
You keep walking further into the room until something catches your attention as you step past one of the pods, forcing you to halt in your tracks in disbelief.
It was the lights flashing on their temples that caught your attention, but not just the lights on all the men, the lights on this one in particular. One of his lights has a weird dim shape to it, at least out of the corner of your eye it seems to.
As you cautiously step backward and turn to face the sleeper in question you feel your stomach plummet. If the little tattoo on the side of his temple hadn’t given him away, the goatee that matched the blue and red symbol you knew so well on his helmet would have. But that was impossible! He was declared mentally unstable after voluntarily modifying himself and had to be terminated. Or… that’s what you had been told… but here he was… And he was very much not dead according to the vitals status panel.
“NO!” The word bursts from you in a cowering whimper before you can stop it.
“What happened? You ok?” Naturally, your comm was still on and Echo and Rex heard that… kriff.
“Oh fuck… force’s sake…” is all you can manage, brain racing to figure out what to say to them. You can’t tell them, you just can’t. It would hurt them more than anything else, but they can’t blow the ship now either.
“What is it? We’re on our way to you!” Rex’s voice can be heard over the sounds of blasters firing in your earpiece.
“NO! I’m fine. I’m fine. We can’t blow the ship. Oh, stars, there’s… we have to protect this room! We can’t let it get taken, and we can’t let them signal anyth—” There’s movement behind you, and you dive out of sight behind the cryotube that had caught your attention.
In your ear you can hear Rex and Echo asking what happened. Knowing they will go quiet in a moment if you don't answer, you remain silent, watching the movement in the room.
Back near the door, one of the tubes opens, the lights on the man’s face blinking faster.
His eyes open slowly, revealing blank eyes, and the light goes steady and then turns off. He’s clad in familiar white armor decorated with brown accents and ram horns. As you watch, he steps out and moves methodically towards the door, picking up a blaster as he passes without even looking at it on his way out of this strange room, his movements strangely… robotic…
“Keeli?” You whisper.
“What?!?!” Rex is confused. Keeli was listed as KIA.
“Uhh, I think… Captain Keeli is on his way to you?” You try to explain, but you can practically hear their eyebrows raising as they exchange glances during their firefight in the hallways not far away, so you keep going, hoping something makes sense to them. “Except it’s not really him. I mean, it is, it’s him, but he seemed… kinda… blank… didn’t seem to notice me though, but we gotta get him back here and back into his pod. Preferable without hurting him. And we gotta steal this room… the whole room… and we can’t let it get activated when we do that… Karking haran [fucking hell]… yeah, it's not good Rex. I’m fine, but what’s in this room is bad. Really bad. Just… knock him out… and get him back here… asap….. Echo, is there a way to disconnect this room from the rest of the ship? It doesn’t look like the rest of the ship, maybe it is removable or something?”
“On it.” Echo must have scooped into the ship again.
“Don’t look into what’s in it yet!” you warn, dumbfounded that you forgot that crucial bit of information earlier. “Just get us out of here and block all signals being sent to this room, yeah?” You instruct. If he finds out when he’s digging through the ship, that would be the worst way to learn about all this, especially the if the man whose cryotube you’re currently hiding behind is who you fear he is.
“OOOkay,” Echo seems to think it’s a weird request, and he’s right, but he trusts you, so he’s running with it for now. “Yeah, it can disconnect, it's a later addition… ship wasn’t designed to have it… I’ll need some time to scramble signals sent to it and decrypt the disconnect controls. Rex?”
“I’ve got you,” Rex replies.
You hadn’t realized it, but while listening to them, your eyes had glazed over, drifting to stare at the door but only as a subconscious safety monitor, you weren’t really seeing the door.
As the conversation ended, you blinked, crawling out from your hiding place and standing up. You’d bought yourself some time to figure out what the fuck was going on in this room and how to get these men out of it. You turned to look at the control panel on the side of the weird, coffin-shaped boxes the men were each stored in.
Hmm, difficult to say what was done here, the keypad was no indicator, just a status panel with basic controls. You glanced back at the man inside for a fleeting moment and froze, staring at the status panel.
Were his eyes open a minute ago?
You blinked and looked around, not sure if you were seeing things. A quick glance around the room confirmed the men’s eyes were all closed. So you looked back at the man in front of you.
His eyes were definitely open, and they were starting to look panicked and pained as they bore into you. You had to get him out.
You slammed your hand on the “open” button on the controls, eyes glued to the man’s face as the doors to the cryotube opened with a dramatic swoosh of fog.
“Trooper, is that you? You ok? What happened? How did you get here? Who put you in this—?” But you cut yourself off. he was being weirdly quiet. That wasn’t like the man you knew.
His eyes were growing larger with fear. He clearly didn’t have any answers either.
He gasped for a breath, but didn’t move. He seemed to be struggling, his whole body was trembling, but he wasn’t moving much.
His breath came out in gasps. He was clearly trying to break free from something while also trying desperately not to panic.
You needed to get him out, and fast!
There were no visible restraints on him, but clearly something was holding him back. Your attention went back to the control panel.
On the screen a single question was lit up “status: ready. Activate?”, and three buttons blinked to life below it “activate”, and “release”, and “terminate”.
Well that last one was unsettling, to say the least…
You jabbed the release button as quickly as you could. Turning immediately to the face you knew so well.
A tear raced down his cheek, but then a look of surprise raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes, and he gasped again, yanking a hand up in front of his face so he could stare at it.
His breathing was still erratic and gasping, but he seemed to be rediscovering his mobility, though his whole body was quivering, probably from shock.
“Good! Good job, trooper! Fight it, that’s it!” You encouraged.
He looked past his trembling hand at you, a pleading look in his eyes.
He probably wanted answers, but you didn’t have any, so instead you offered a hug and a comforting smile.
Two shakey hands reached for you and he started to lean forward, albeit clumsily.
In the back of your mind a warning flared, reminding you this was not a good idea, that you had no idea what they had done to him. Based on Keeli’s movements a moment ago, it wasn’t good. But the desperation and sadness in his eyes was too much to resist. He needed someone right now, and you wanted to be here for him.
You immediately stepped forward and cradled him against your shoulder and chest. One hand comfortingly stroked the hair that had begun to grow back slowly during his time in cryo, the other rubbing his back.
He took a ragged breath, and you could feel tears starting to stain the garments beneath your armor.
“Easy now trooper, I’ve got you. We’re gonna get you out of here. Breathe with me, trooper. In…… and out…… good! Keep going! In… and out… in… and out…”
commotion in the hallway alerted you to Rex and Echo’s approach.
“Incoming!” Rex called. “Echo needs a socket,” he warned.
You shielded the man on your shoulder, a hand automatically coming up to cover the pulsing light on his temple, hiding his identifying mark from view as you scoured the room for a port for Echo.
Echo burst in, brow furrowing for a moment in confusion. He too thought this was the “armory” but it sure as haran [hell] didn’t look like one, and a strange man is crying on your shoulder, but when you pointed him to the terminal he needed, he pushed aside the confusion and began working on freeing the room from the confines of the ship as fast as he could. A true ARC, compartmentalizing and focusing on his task to protect everyone. Aware there would be time for questions if he could do his job and get everyone out alive first.
Rex was hot on his heels, covering his back, with Keeli draped over his shoulder, unconscious as requested.
You pointed to the empty tube you had seen Keeli step out of, and Rex placed him back in it, clocking the “sleep” button to keep him under for the time being.
Only a few minutes later, the room was freed, Captain Howzer had swung by in a stolen ship, grabbed the container of a room you were all in, and you were safely in hyperspace.
“Ok, now, what the FUCK is this place?” Echo was rightfully angry. This appeared to be some continuation of what the Techo Union had been doing to him. Clone bodies, but controlled minds, kept alive by mods, but slaves to the Empire’s will.
“Yeah, I don’t know either, but tell me how many of these men you thought were dead?” You offered, eyes wide with pain and anger and hate for the Empire, still cradling the man crying on your shoulder, though his breathing pattern was calming slightly as he let it out.
Rex stood still and silent in the middle of the room, his back to you, but you could see his fists clench. He was angry too. You all were.
“But they can fight it,” you said, looking at Rex’s back.
Rex and Echo immediately turned to you.
“They can fight it. This one did. He’s a strong one. He broke through whatever they did to them while I was standing here.”
They approached, Rex putting on his comforting Captain demeanor, ready to talk to this brother to see what he knew. The man was still a sobbing mess on your shoulder, gripping your waist tight with white knuckles like he was afraid of the truth of this room too.
“He doesn’t know either.” You explained, “He was so scared, I had to do something. I don’t know what they’ve done to him or how to deactivate it, but I couldn’t leave him in there alone and immobile and very much awake.” You tell Rex, worry making it a bit of a rambling mess.
“It’s ok,” Rex pats your back, “One thing at a time,” he takes a deep breath, trying to release the anger to comfort you both.
“Well, it’s gonna be more than one thing at a time, it has to. You’re not gonna like this,” you glance at the man in your arms.
Rex looked at you with concern. And then his eyes widen with horror. He realizes you meant he knew this one. More than he’d known Captain Keeli. He knew this man, whoever it was, well. His gaze drifted to the man, racked with sobs, though they were beginning to subside. He did know this man. The posture of his grief was so familiar. And the way his thumb dug into your bicep as his hand shifted to your arm. He remembered holding this man in the same way you were… years ago…
Echo approached now too, aware of the elephant in the room as you glanced between them. He too knew this man, your expression told him. He and Rex exchanged a worried look as your attention diverted to the man in your arms.
“Hey… you ready, trooper?” You asked gently.
He took a deep stuttering breath and nodded into your shoulder.
You held his gaze and took another deep breath, and he matched it. And then you let your hand fall away from his temple.
Rex and Echo’s faces went from concerned to stunned.
There, beneath the light on his temple was one little number. One little number that meant everything to them. One little number belonging to a man they thought they’d never get back again. But it couldn’t be him… could it?
Rex stepped forward and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
The man’s head lifted, a watery eye appearing slowly over your shoulder, red and puffy. A fresh tear streaked down his cheek as he looked at them for a moment. Then his eyes widened, and he sat back and looked at you as you watched him with kind eyes. His eyes held a look of disbelief in them. But you nodded at him, and he turned back to the men behind you.
“Rex?” The trooper asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.
Rex nodded, and flicked away a tear of his own he’d never admit to.
“Fives?” A far more tentative voice behind Rex asked.
The trooper blinked and looked past Rex, nodding. He knew this man too, but he was struggling to place him. Which seemed odd, given the amount of mods on this trooper, surely those would be hard to forget! …unless the man hadn’t had them when he’d known him? Those big eyes he knew well though. Not because every brother shared the same eyes, but because he knew how to tell a brother apart from their eyes. And these eyes he’d known since he was small. Always full of stronger emotions than any other brother he’d ever met, but always reserved and hidden, behind his helmet and regulations and adherence to being a perfect trooper to the letter…
“Echo?” He asked, receiving a teary nod in return. “But… you died…” he mumbled.
“So did you,” Rex chuckled, no longer trying to hide the tears on his cheeks as he clapped the man on the shoulder.
You tried to step aside so Rex and Echo could hug Fives, but his grip on your waist tightened. He was staring in shock at Rex’s hand on his shoulder like he didn’t think he was real until then.
“Easy, Fives, it’s ok. They’re really here too. It’s really them,” you encouraged.
“Oh, Kark it,” Echo swiftly stepped forward and smooshed everyone into one big hug. He knew it was him, he didn’t have to ask, he knew his brother too well to be fooled by a fake, and so did Rex.
For a few moments, none of you could say anything. Fives was alive! Which only made the reality of this room that much more horrible… but right now you wanted to focus on the fact that your favorite trio of the 501st was alive.
Soon your shoulders were wet with tears from all 4 of you.
No doubt it would also be filled with endless questions very soon when Howzer and the others inevitably came to investigate what created the change in plans that resulted in the theft of an entire room. But that could wait until the time came, right now, you had 3 tearful troopers to comfort.
Fives lay on the exam bed, though it was more of a table honestly, only equipped with light padding… if it counted as padding at all, and you stood at the medical console adjacent to it.
The droid on the other side of the bed was still scanning him. it had been for several minutes.
That was odd, wasn’t it? Fives wondered. He looked up at you.
Your eyes were wide and your face was growing more and more pale by the second. As he watched, you closed your eyes and looked away from the screen, swallowing hard. You held still for a moment, then shook your head like you were trying to clear it, and looked pointedly over at him instead of the screen, only to find him watching you with a question on his brow.
You shook your head, glancing at the droid. “Just let us know when you have it all,” you told it.
The droid simply kept scanning.
You looked at him and perched on the cot next to him, shaking your head. “I’m so sorry they did all this to you. You hanging in there okay?” You ask gently.
He nodded, nonchalantly, “Still doesn’t feel real. I remember it. Dying. Rex was there… and then I remember seeing your face looking at me in that tube… there are bits and pieces I can’t place. Bright lights overhead, voices I don’t know, blurs of dark and light mostly… then watching the cryotube closing around me… and starting to panic because I knew I couldn’t open it from inside… and then you, Mesh’la… I’m glad it was you that found me. I don’t know what I would have done if it had been someone I didn’t know. I’ve never been that scared before…”
You took his hand and placed it in your lap, playing with his fingers in order to pointedly ignore the medical screen for a while longer.
“I’m glad I found you too,” you told his fingers.
“Scan complete,” the droid said, moving away to scan the sleepers in their cryotubes next.
You took a deep breath, preparing yourself for how bad it was.
Fives looked up at you, the fear returning to his face, his breathing pattern trending towards hyperventilating. Something told you he was afraid of the scan results too.
“Easy,” you patted his shoulder, “I don’t want to look at it yet either. Let’s just take a minute, okay?”
Fives nodded, still staring at you, unsure what else to do.
So you offered him a hug again.
He immediately sat up to accept it.
The broad-shouldered, strong, warrior seemed to shrink as he nestled into your arms like a scared tooka.
“You’re safe here, Fives, I’ve got you. I’m here,” you muttered to try to comfort you both.
Rex paused in the doorway, watching you comfort Fives for a moment, listening to you both avoid looking at the results of the medical scans. So he stepped forward to do it so neither of you would have to.
He reached the screen at the same time you stood up, but he watched the color drain from your cheek as you skimmed it, and patted your shoulder, gesturing for you to sit back on the cot with Fives.
You complied, but not because you wanted to, because the contents of your stomach were threatening to revisit the room if you didn’t.
You swallowed hard, eyes trailing to the collar of Fives’ blacks, where it had begun to slide down his neck as he moved around. It didn’t quite fit like it used to, it seemed loose to him.
He knew you must have seen something there in the scan, on his neck.
Fives needed to know what, so he reached for the collar of his blacks and pulled it down, but he wasn’t looking at himself, he wanted to see your reaction to know how bad it was first as he undid the fasteners on his blacks and revealed his chest to you.
Your eyes widened. After a moment you reached out to touch, then suddenly pulled back and covered your mouth, closing your eyes again.
Fives looked down at his chest and froze. That sure seemed like more than just the blaster hole that he remembered…
You tried again to reach out and touch the scar, but you seemed either unable to or unwilling to touch it without his permission.
“Please,” was all he could get out. He looked up at you, to find you watching him with concern. “Please,” he said, desperation lacing his tone, though he wasn’t sure exactly what for.
Your eyes went back to the scars on his chest, and your hands slowly, slowly finished their journey to his chest and made contact with the scar.
He watched your fingers brush the raised skin so gently he wasn’t even sure if you’d actually touched him. But the coolness of your fingers made him shiver, so you must be in contact with his skin.
Your fingers traced lines around his chest, out towards his limbs, and back in and around the circular patch on his chest.
So that hadn’t been a dream. He’d actually… died? Or he’d at least been badly wounded?
Beneath the skin knarled with the scar of a direct hit from a blaster burn, he could see the dark coloration of metal parts and scaras in perfectly straight lines radiating away from the scar, likely from surgery. That seemed to make his stomach churn uncomfortably. He didn’t want to look at it, so he placed a hand over yours, pressing your hand flat against his chest and focusing on the feel of your warm hand on his skin. He closed his eyes and let the warmth of you ground him for a moment as he took deep breaths.
Echo appeared in the doorway. He’d had to leave when the droid started the scan. He couldn’t watch it knowing Fives had been through something similar to what he’d gone through.
“Woah, Deja vu,” Echo’s voice sounded like it was lost in a memory. “Except last time… I was there.” He pointed to where Fives sat with his scomp.
Fives opened his eyes, looking at his best friend, with watery eyes.
Echo finally found the motivation to keep moving his feet into the room, but he was sniffling.
Echo came up behind you and nestled into your shoulder as he sat behind you, resting his scomp on Fives knee, just to make sure he was actually there and this wasn’t a dream.
Rex sniffled too as he glanced at the three of you. You always were the Domino Twins' favorite, and right now you were his favorite too. Favorite what didn’t matter, just favorite.
“Geez, Fives… they really did a number on you,” Rex’s voice lacked its usual confidence as he continued to stare at the screen, knowing he was failing to mask his emotions as he stared at it.
Suddenly he turned to the trio on the bed and placed a hand on Fives’ shoulder. “When they took your body from me…….. they never let me see you again……... Kenobi had to use the Force to calm my mind. I never thought I’d see you again…… certainly not… alive…”
Fives grabbed his hand too, tears tracking down his face as the three of you looked up at Rex.
You giggled through the tears a bit.
“What?” Echo’s voice sounded like he was grumpy that his pillow was giggling.
“Nothing, I just… I didn’t think you two could become more like twins, and now…. Well, here we are,” you chuckled, wiping a stray tear from your cheek.
The three men laughed and squeezed you tight for a moment.
Rex placed a kiss on your hair in thanks, and turned back to the screen. “Alright, well, that’s something to start from at least. How similar are you to Echo? What are the most important pieces to keep you functioning, and is there anything you know you need to change right off the bat? Then we can worry about disconnecting you entirely from whatever activation system is in that damned room.” He started mumbling to himself as he flipped through the pages and pages of finds from the droid.
Regardless of what happened, you knew only one thing: the four of you had survived the war and would find a new normal, together.
Rex laughed when he and Hunter found the three of you snuggled together, fast asleep by the bonfire that night, the ocean breeze keeping you company. You had each other, and you’d all find a way to get through this, whatever the Empire decided to do with you next. After all, he needed to find a way to get his brothers out of their cryotubes and back to being individually functioning people. Fives was still wearing your beskar helmet, as you’d discovered that it blocked the signal and kept him safe from reactivation, but it wouldn’t last forever. Time to see what Omega had told him she was preparing. It was a good thing Tech and Nala Se had trained her, Rex didn’t know what he’d do if she wasn’t there to help with this one.
Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it! And NO dropping it into an AI to finish it for me! That’s stealing my work and feeding it to an AI without my consent. It is not okay to give an AI something you didn’t write yourself!
