Cody’s noticed of course, he fucking notices everything. He’d given Rex a look part way through the morning that might have been intended to be supportive, but just made Rex even more self-conscious of how much his discomfort was affecting him. When they break for midmeal, or what’s left of the break after the morning ran late, Cody is right on Rex’s heels out of the meeting room, pulling him to the side. Many of the others are still locked in conversation, so no one spares them a second glance as they walk past, probably assuming they’re doing the same. 

“Let me help,” Cody says, voice low. 

Rex shakes his head. There’s nowhere close by that’s private enough. Being caught by a clone would be embarrassing but manageable, being caught by a Jedi? A Senator? Rex’s face burns at even the thought.

“We’re going to be in tactical meetings for the rest of the afternoon. I need you at your best,” Cody says.

“Don’t make this about my performance.” Rex can handle a lot of mortification, but not implying that he can’t do his job because his nipples hurt. 

Cody’s face pinches in a way that makes it clear it’s not not about that.

“Fine,” he says, like he’s compromising when it’s very clear he isn’t. “We're going to be in tactical meetings for the rest of the afternoon and I’d like a morale boost.”

Which is how Rex finds himself in a tiny cleaning cupboard with Cody’s hands up the front of his shirt. It wasn’t locked when they tried it, which might mean someone is coming back, and even if they aren’t, they’re just off the corridor back to the meeting room, someone could hear them. 

Cody’s fingers brush over Rex’s swollen nipples and that’s almost enough to end this before it starts. Rex jerks, a whine catching in his throat. 

“Quiet,” Cody warns him, like he fucking needs to be warned. 

Cody is a practised hand at this by now. He rolls both of Rex’s nipples between his fingers. The effect is instantaneous. Milk dribbles out of Rex’s nipple, over the back of Cody’s hand. It’s not enough to fix the discomfort, but it's enough for a wave of relief to rush through Rex. He bites his lip, another whine threatening to burst out of him. 

Cody gives him a very self-satisfied look, one he can’t even respond to when Cody’s hands teasing the milk out of him feels so good. There’s a lot to get out, too much to just wipe away.

“Cody, my shirt.” It already had two little damp spots, thankfully covered by his thicker jacket, but if Cody keeps teasing him like this that might not be enough. Cody interprets that as Rex asking him to unbutton the shirt entirely, pushing it away to give him clear access. 

Access that he’s quick to turn to his advantage. Cody latches his mouth over one of Rex’s nipples and sucks. Milk squirts from his nipple into Cody’s mouth and Rex’s knees almost buckle. He moans, slapping a hand over his mouth just a second too late to fully catch the noise, but hopefully fast enough to keep them from being heard.

With one hand on his other nipple, still pinching it between thumb and finger, pulling it away from his chest as he milks it, Cody again. It’s a deadly combination. Cody lips on his chest, drawing out the milk goes right down to Rex’s cock. The pleasure jerks upwards with every suck, each one releasing even more pressure and only making him want it more.

Cody pulls back. Rex groans, eyes squeezed shut. Before he can do the inevitable and beg, Cody takes a quick breath and swaps sides.

Rex’s head thumps back against the shelves of cleaning supplies. Cody starts working on Rex’s other nipple, drinking Rex’s milk as he plays with the side he’s already finished with. If Rex comes in his pants that’s going to make an even bigger stain than his leaking nipples.

“Cody,” he whimpers. It’s supposed to be a warning but doesn’t land even close. It doesn’t get Cody to stop. Rex doesn’t want him to, but he should.

There’s voices outside, ones Rex half recognises. That doesn’t get Cody to stop either, and Rex bites down on his lip and tries not to sob with an awful pleasure as Cody’s tongue flicks at his nipple and then sucks hard.

Rex is trembling by the time Cody finally finishes, his chest shining with Cody’s spit. He stands dumbly while Cody buttons his shirt and jacket back up.

“Better?” Cody asks. There’s a line of thin, white at the corner of his mouth.

Rex nods, not trusting his voice. His chest is a lot better, the pressure relieved. He has a different problem. He adjusts his pants over the bulge of his erection. That’ll take care of itself.

“Don’t rush  me,” Dogma snaps. This is dangerous. It’s stupid and reckless and it must be against some reg that Dogma’s too distracted to remember. Distracted because Hardcase is wiggling under him, his cock pressed up against Dogma’s ass. Distracted because Hardcase is looking at him with that stupid expression he gets sometimes that Dogma doesn’t like thinking about. 

“Someone’s got to rush you. We’ll be here all night if you don’t get a move on.” Hardcase flexes his neck and it all moves under Dogma’s hands. It’s horribly intimate. “And someone might catch us.”

Dogma can’t be caught. Not after curfew. Not with Hardcase. 

He swallows—suddenly very aware of how his own throat bobs now he can feel how Hardcase’s does—and squeezes. Some things happen instantly: Hardcase stops talking, his voice replaced with a croak, and his breath cuts out. Other things are slow: Hardcase’s steady pulse starts to throb more urgently under his hands, his shoulders tense.

Hardcase’s cock is still sticking up in his ass, but it’s not what gets Dogma’s rushing to join in. 

It’s the power. And it’s because Hardcase asked him to do this and not someone else. His cock goes from only half hard to aching in only a matter of seconds. 

Dogma pulls in a breath Hardcase can’t take and shoves down the urge to jerk his hips.

Hardcase goes redder and redder, his pulse gets slower and slower. He stares up at Dogma with decreasing clarity. He doesn’t try to throw Dogma off him. He doesn’t fight like the Separatist had fought. He lies there and trusts in Dogma’s judgement.

Hardcase is so hot. So is Dogma, but a different kind. His skin feels too tight and the only thing that makes any sense is how Hardcase’s throat feels constricted under his hands. He’s doing this. He’s going to bring Hardcase to the brink of death and then give him the best orgasm of his life instead. Hardcase is going to beg him to do this again.

Dogma comes. It hits almost out of nowhere, but with a force that seizes his entire body. He hunches over with a desperate moan and his hands slip. Hardcase pulls in a ragged gasp, his whole chest shifting under Dogma. 

Dogma ruined it. Another wave crashes through him all the same, prolonging his humiliation. 

By the time he’s blinking blearily at Hardcase, Hardcase looks more composed than he feels. 

“You came from just that?” Hardcase wheezes, taking a rough gasp between almost every word.

There’s a long line of come up Hardcase’s chest and up his chin. There’s a break along his neck where Dogma’s hands were.

“I didn’t—” Didn’t what? He clearly did. “I’ve never—” Except he has, and Hardcase might not know that, but he’d probably suspect. “I—” His come stands out so starkly against Hardcase’s red face.

“That’s incredible!” Hardcase doesn’t gasp between those words, just before and after. “You’re incredible." 

Dogma doesn’t feel incredible, he feels like a fool who shot off too early when he wasn’t even the one being touched. 

“I was—” 

This time he’s cut off by Hardcase’s mouth crashing against his. It’s not a good kiss. Hardcase is clumsy and still recovering, and Dogma is too busy mapping his way to the closest airlock to worry about kissing back.

“What else makes you come so fast?” Hardcase asks, eyes bright even if he coughs right after. “I bet we can find something that does it even faster? You could spank me?”

“You’ll tell me to stop if you change your mind?”

Cody cracks open an eye, closes it, and then tries again with both. The colours of the ceiling spin and then mostly settle. The edges bleed into each other, all too vivid and too captivating. It’s why he’d closed his eyes in the first place.

The couple are still talking.

“Of course. And you can stop at any time.” 

Cody turns to look at Fox, or rather, lets his head fall to the side in Fox’s direction. Fox isn’t looking back at him, he’s fixing the wall between them and the voices with a judgemental sneer.

“Fox,” Cody whispers. Fox ignores him. He doesn’t ignore Cody elbowing him in the side. Fox twists, ready to snap, but stops the second he locks eyes on Cody. Cody normally prides himself on his facial control, but whatever Bly had passed onto them has made his face lax and almost numb, moving without his say-so. Whatever Fox sees in it, it isn’t a fight. 

“Fox,” Cody says again, voice low. “Babe. Do you want to have sex. We don’t have to. I wouldn't want to pressure you.”

Fox blinks at him like he’s grown a second head, and then catches up with the joke. Cody would laugh at him, except his own thoughts are slow too, tripping over each other as he tries to get them in line. And he’d much rather laugh at the stupid pair on the other side of the wall.

Fox swings himself into Cody’s lap, landing too heavy too near parts of Cody he doesn’t want the full weight of a man dropped on. “Oh, Cody,” Fox says, matching Cody’s mocking tone. “Please be gentle with me.” 

Cody snorts, slapping his hand over his mouth. 

In the next room, with enough sincerity that Cody could choke on it, one of the clones is still going. “Sweetheart, you’re gorgeous."

“You’re beautiful, Fox,” Cody says and Fox grins at him with a mouth that’s too wide and stretches wider the longer Cody stares. He blinks and it returns to normal.

Fox makes an attempt at getting his own pants pushed out of the way, then Cody’s, then gives up and just grinds down onto Cody. It works just as well.

“Cody, my love, would it be all right if I shove my cock down your throat and choke you on it? I won’t unless you sign a consent form saying it’s okay.” 

Cody presses his hand harder to his mouth and then, finally remembers he doesn’t care. He laughs, jerking his hips up towards Fox. 

“Let me write us a fucking ops report before we get started. I’ll draw a diagram.” 

Fox looks at him with dark eyes, pupils blown so wide the brown around them is barely more than a memory. He’s smiling the way he always does, like an asshole about to revel in someone else’s suffering. But there’s a softer edge to it, something making holding real malice harder than usual. And they’re revealing in mocking the same person together.

Cody's barely hard, neither is Fox. No one is going to be choking on anything, but it doesn’t matter for much when Fox rubs them together through layers of clothing.

“Let me know if it hurts. I’ll stop,” a voice carries through. It gets a snort from both Cody and Fox, what follows get full body shaking

“It’s okay. I trust you,” the other says.

“Do you trust me?” Fox asks, managing to sound almost as sincere. 

“With my whole heart,” Cody says. 

Fox wrenches, and thankfully doesn’t actually throw up. He blinks at Cody like he wasn’t sure which way it was going to go either.

“Cody, love, do you—”

Bang.

The wall jerks, dust drifting down from somewhere up near the ceiling. 

“We can fucking hear you!” a voice yells.

It’s the worst thing they could have done. Fox laughs so hard he falls right out of Cody’s lap. Cody follows right after him. Just as Cody feels like he’s got himself under control, he catches sight of Fox and they’re gone again. If their neighbours ever continue, Cody never finds out.

He had no new information to give to Hunter and Wrecker. They'd agreed to go their separate ways, well ‘agree’ was a strong word. Echo thought it was better, more area to cover, more routes to take to reach Tantiss but Hunter, ever the leader, had a hard time splitting up, especially when it meant leaving a man behind…and after Tech. They argued then. It was fierce and it almost came to blows before Wrecker had to step in. Echo was alone, in Hunter's eyes- but Echo had Rex, he had a squad of brothers who all wanted to reach the same ending, freeing as many clones from the imperial’s grip as they could.

Hunter just saw Omega.

And Echo understood. She was special. To Hunter though, she eclipsed his whole world, but Echo couldn't ignore the rallying cries of his brothers. Even for her. Because of her. They were suffering. He’d hoped this new mission would help. That it would give him something so he wouldn't feel like a wounded, starving dog the next time he saw Hunter.

His scomp spun violently and he signed again, turning away from the celebration.

He had a call to make.

++++++++

Echo breathed out, waiting for the long range comm to connect. He gripped the device tightly before letting his prosthetic hand loosen. Idly he thought about why he had gotten one in the first place and smirked. A scomp, he'd found, had a mind of its own when he was excited. Hunter did like his hair pulled- just not quite like that. The blue glow of a holo flickering on paused his thoughts.

Hunter looked exhausted. For once in recent memory though he wasn't in his armor, just a tight white shirt with the shoulders cut off and some loose sleep pants. The bags under his eyes told Echo he was doing anything but sleeping.

“Echo.” Hunter said with a nod, words spoken with little familiarity. Clipped.

Echo resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Hunter was tired. He was exhausted. Upset. (Like Echo wasn't all these things)

Be patient.

“Hunter. It's good to see you-You look like shit.” He said-with warmth.

Echo thought briefly of not being petty. But the pinched look on Hunter's face dragged the words out of him. Hunter’s flat look turned hard, he could just make out the other clone’s lips twisting.

He thought about kissing him then.

“I miss you.” Also words Hunter's face dragged out of him.

Hunter's face softened before turning pained, “Echo-”

Echo could finish the sentence. ‘I don't have time for this.’ He should be mad but he felt like it was deserved and horribly cruel in equal parts. It was his fault for leaving. He created the distance there but Hunter, he kept the space between them just fine.

The quiet buzz of the holo was the only sound as they looked at each other. Echo thought of anything to say to keep Hunter connected longer when he heard a quiet question.

“Mission go well?”

Yes. I saved them.

But Echo swallowed and said instead, “No new info.”

He could see the passing flicker of interest wane in Hunter's eyes and he felt his chest ache.

“Ah. Okay then.” Hunter paused, closing his eyes. “Echo. I have to go. There's another lead Wrecker and I are headed to. The intel might help us find Omega.”

Echo hummed, his throat tight. “Yeah. Just…be safe.”

Hunter looked up at him then, his mouth opening, before he paused again, and said, softly,“ Yeah you too.”

There was a click as the holo turned off, loud in the quiet.