Cuddle Pile
Characters: Commander Jammer, Bex, Thrash, Nash, Laraby, Crash, Flash, Henley
Word count: 1,306
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Masterlist
Commander Jammer was known to be one of the least affectionate clones in the entire GAR. But he knew how important it was to his battalion, so he offered the idea of cuddle nights. When the troopers went through another traumatic experience; a mission gone wrong, heavy losses in battle, the unavoidable death of civilians; they would gather together and cuddle. All armor would be discarded and every available pillow or blanket was piled in the middle of the barracks to be dispersed as necessary.
More often than not, Jammer and the oldest clones like Thrash, Bex, and Nash would end up at the bottom of the pile, with the weight of three or more troopers resting on them. The feeling was a comfort to Jammer, though none of his brothers would ever call him out on it for fear of losing his participation in the cuddles.
One night, after a long and grueling mission, the troopers returned to their barracks and pulled off their armor silently. Without exchanging a word, the entire group settled on the floor to wait until Jammer was finished with the general and could come join them. When he did, he looked completely spent. Their time in the Outer Rim away from most simple comforts meant his hair had grown out, leaving half of it blond as he always died it while the rest was his natural black growing out from the roots. It gave him an odd sort of look, but even Bex wasn’t about to tease him over it. After all, the commander only ever had blond hair to begin with because of him.
In the dim light, Jammer pulled off his armor and laid it beside his brothers’ before dropping down to the floor on a pillow. Everyone took that as their cue and piled around him. After ten minutes of shuffling and repositioning, Jammer was in the center of the large pile with his head resting on Thrash’s legs and Laraby’s head on his stomach. Bex was on the edge of the group sharing a pillow with Nash. Crash and Flash were tangled together with their legs being used to support Laraby’s to better protect his twisted ankle that they all knew he’d have to visit the medbay for in the morning. Their field medic, Henley, had given him a once over and decided that what his brother needed most that night was cuddles with the others.
It took only a few minutes after settling in for most of the troopers to fall asleep. But Jammer was kept awake by thoughts of the reason for this particular cuddle pile. Most times, there would be some conversation about what brought this on and a little teasing as everyone got comfortable. But this time, no one spoke. They had all made a silent agreement that it could wait until morning. Everything could.
In the near perfect darkness of the barracks, all was calm. The only discernible sound was the soft snores from some of the clones. Jammer could just see the gentle rise and fall of Laraby’s chest in front of him, reminding him that his brother was still there. Even though he almost wasn’t. It was too close of a call for the commander. He knew losing some of his brothers was inevitable, but he wasn’t prepared to let go of anyone yet. He needed more time with them.
The night passed peacefully once Jammer dozed off. There was plenty of shuffling and repositioning. Whenever one of the boys rolled away from the edges of the pile, another one would reach out and pull him back. Thrash shuffled around at some point, but woke up just enough to keep himself from disrupting Jammer. By the time the sun rose, the boys were all more well rested than they’d been in weeks.
They woke up slowly, one by one. Bex untangled himself from three others, troopers who’d been shinies when they left and too experienced when they got back for the few weeks they’d been on duty. Nash was next, weaseling out of the pile and sorting all the armor from the mess on the floor and instead placing each set of armor on the bed assigned to its owner. He often did this for his brothers, sometimes with Laraby’s help, sometimes with Thrash, but most times alone.
Jammer was the next to blink his eyes open and reluctantly leave his brothers. He still had morning meditation with the general and he didn’t feel he could afford to miss it. The relaxing quiet with his closest friend and confidant was instrumental to his stability and everyone knew it. So, with Henley’s assistance, he pulled his too long hair back from his face, changed into a clean set of grays, and made his way to the Jedi Temple gardens.
This left the others to wake up at their leisure. When Laraby got up, Henley made him wait for a bit until he was ready. Then he dragged the injured clone down to the medbay, where he received a light scolding from the medics for not having come straight there after leaving the ship last night. No one outside of the 357th knew about their cuddles, and none of them were about to bring it up, so Henley defended his brother. He promised that he’d taken a look at it already and had allowed Laraby to rest up in the barracks first.
Back in the barracks, Crash and Flash were cleaning up their armor and trying not to bother the dozen or so clones still slowly waking up. Their efforts were ruined though when Crash’s helmet slipped out his hand and hit the floor. Thrash, easily the lightest sleeper among them, jerked awake. In his momentary confusion, he moved his foot and jostled the shiny next him. That woke him up, and proceeded to wake up the remaining clones in the pile.
Thrash gave a halfhearted glare to the twin pilots, but just didn’t seem to be awake enough to really be upset. Instead, he got to his feet and helped the others up, then started putting away the scattered bedding for the day. The shiny helped him while the rest headed for the refreshers. It took nearly an hour, but once everyone was ready, they moved as a group towards the temple gardens to find Jammer and invite him along for breakfast.
When they found him, he was on his way back already. In the daylight, his hair looked even stranger, and Bex reasoned he could only be kind for so long. The second he opened his mouth to say something, Jammers clapped a hand over it.
“Not a word, Bex. I’m cutting it tomorrow and then you get to be the only blond one for the next month. That’s your punishment for taking my pillow last night.”
“You had Thrash! And Nash was hogging our pillow. Can’t you dye it next week?”
Bex gave his older brother a pleading look, one he’d used to get his way before with decent success. This time Jammer just smirked at him.
“Nope. In fact, if anyone’s hair is getting dyed, it might have to be yours.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I? How do you think the other boys figured out how to make it blond in the first place?”
“You said you had nothing to do with that!”
Crash and Flash led the way to the mess hall, allowing their commander to keep teasing their most troublesome brother at the back of the pack. If it weren’t for the battalion established cuddle piles, they knew Jammer wouldn’t have been in a joking mood that day, so they decided not to mention that they had actually stolen his pillow to begin with or that they’d saved some holo photos of the sleeping troopers.
