#luciditydrabblesntea

Please don’t leave me.

Nightmares were plentiful even in the Clone Underground. Maybe moreso in the Clone Underground. Echo extracted himself from the coarse blanket that had somehow managed to tie itself around his legs, the damp fabric a chilling reminder of exactly what he was doing up. He placed his feet onto the ground, the stone floors of one of the smaller caverns they’d put the dorms, grounding. It was quiet excluding the snores of his brothers and he allowed himself a moment to simply close his eyes.

Omega stood in front of him, her eyes watering as she stared up at him. A million things that clearly wanted to be said on her lips, but nothing ever slipping out. A sight that made his stomach churn. Please don’t leave me, she had said.

Despite it being weeks since Coruscant, the kid’s last words to him were still ringing in his ears. Haunting him since the moment she’d thrown her arms around his neck and whispered them under her breathe like a fervent prayer. It’d taken him everything to not march right back onto the Marauder right there and then. So he’d settled for hesitantly bringing his own arms around her.

She’d clung onto him desperately, as if he were the only thing keeping her from falling apart. And for a moment, he had felt like it. Had felt like he was that pillar of strength for her as her body shuddered against him, silent sobs that he knew she was strong enough to not release in front of him. Had felt like he could ignore the screaming in the back of his mind in order to comfort the girl in front of him. And he had been for her, his little soldier.

It’d been only a few months, barely a few, but just like any other clone, he’d grown attached to her. They all had. Tech had given up plenty of his personal research time to ensure she had an education, while Wrecker made it a point to take better care of what he said and did around her. Hunter, perhaps, more than the rest of them had really taken to her being one of their own, always keeping an eye on her, eerily aware of her every movement, and adjusting everything they did to allow for Omega to be there.

All of them doting on the girl, protecting her, listening to her. Growing with her.

Maybe him, more than the others. He had taught her how to work with droids, on droids. Gonky had eventually proven too simple for her to practice on and shockingly, he had offered up his own scomp, inciting some surprise from both the others and himself. His cybernetics weren’t something he normally allowed others to touch, let alone work on. It hadn’t mattered the level of skills; his cybernetics were his own burden to carry.

Except, with Omega, it wasn’t a penance that he had to uphold. With Omega, it was something she took seriously, with no pity or fear. Simply a part of who he was and that this was his body. It had helped that she had picked up on on how it worked so quickly. The trust came easily after that and within time, she became the one to help him when things got dicey with his cybernetics or if he were incapable of repairing it in some way. Her small hands and fingers allowed her to get to crevices that even he couldn’t reach.

Those same fingers that had gently, delicately dug through his wiring to fix fried circuits had dug into the back of his neck, clumsily. As if she couldn’t get her hands on him fast enough. She’d buried her face into the side of his neck, fighting back tears, and it was then he had heard her. It’d been her softest plead, the one not even Rex had heard standing barely a few meters away. Perhaps not even one meant for him, but he had heard it all the same.

It’d been the one to stick with him the longest. The one that played in his head at night when he finally managed to grab some sleep in between the operations to save and infiltrate. The one that kept him going when all hope was seemingly lost and everything was on fire. The one that reminded him why he needed to keep fighting, scrape by scrape.

He could only lie to himself for so long.

Because it was the same one that had replaced the line in his dreams of fire, explosions, and pain so visceral he woke up in a cold sweat, clutching his scomp. Instead of Fives crying out his name as Echo’s helmet was torn from his head, it was Omega crying out to him — and running towards him and not away. Instead of Echo dying at the Citadel, diving in front of a shuttle that had been their way out, it was Omega, getting shot down by droids.

Fear had fueled his every movement, decision, since. Had this been how Rex had felt for General Tano back after the war? The sense of leaving a piece of him behind when he left her behind? The sense that he had to keep fighting to keep her safe?

He just had to make sure he returned to them. To her.

Please don’t leave me.

Fives watching him get knocked back by the explosion, his blaster hanging uselessly at his side as he watched Echo die. Omega watching him. A shudder escaped him.

Zoemai’s back burned.

Yet Tech kept going, painstakingly methodical in how he delicately peeled away each piece of fabric that clung to her blaster wound. His hands were gentle and cool, a balm to her irritated and more than likely infected blaster wound if his reaction to when she’d taken off her shirt with her back to him had been of any hint. As the next piece was eased away from her skin, her fingers dug into the back of the cockpit’s chair, her nails bending against the metal as she inhaled shakily.

A blaster wound from a mission gone wrong. A stupid mission. It should have been an easy retrieval. Get into an Imperial building, steal some data, get out. Something that should have been a solo mission, one that would have never been known to the Batch in the first place. That had been before the Empire had abruptly updated security protocols. Security protocols that required distractions and decryptions that she could never hopes to achieve on her own; a one-man mission had turned into six.

And like most things with this particular squad of clones, things had started swimmingly. Breaking in had been one of the easiest ops she’d ever been apart of in her life. They trusted her just as she trusted them, and that had allowed them to easily navigate throughout the building without getting caught. A feeling of accomplishment that she hadn’t felt since… well. That’s when, of course, where one thing had turned into another...

Through clenched teeth, a whimper escaped her as Tech’s fingers brushed against a more tender part of her wound and she leaned her damp forehead against the headrest. Her cloak was barely thick enough to block the cold of the seat from her chest. There was a mumble, most likely an apology, but Zoemai couldn’t find the energy to even acknowledge it. Instead, she turned her attention elsewhere, away from the pain.

The Marauder was silent save for the thrum of hyperspace and the occasional snore from the bunks behind. Wrecker the loudest of them all, though if she concentrated hard enough, she could hear Omega’s soft breaths beneath it all. Safe. The streaks of stars that tore past them lit up the cockpit, stretching and tearing shadows apart with a consistency she both adored and envied. And there, in the reflection of one of the panels, she could make out Tech’s expression of pure concentration as he leaned forward.

Nothing, could however, distract her from what felt like someone ripping the very skin off her back. The yelp from her was involuntary but in the moment, she couldn’t bring herself to care as she collapsed forward into the back of the chair. Her strength had long since been sapped and her normally endless reserves of bitterness that had used to fuel her in times like these had found their limits faster the longer she’d been with the batch.

Breathing hard, she pressed her cheek against the headrest, the metal soothing, as she waited for his hands to return. One minute turned into two, and two nearly had her eyes fluttering shut if not for the sudden pressure in her mind from the Force. Her eyes shot back open and she glanced over at the panel that she’d been using to sneak glances at him.

Uncharacteristically still, he sat there as if suspended, looking at her. Not at her back, her wound, or even the tweezers and bacta in hand, but at her. Eyebrows pinched together, shoulders hunched, an expression on his face that would do better on a battlefield or an operation rather him pulling fabric from a blaster wound on her back.

“Just say it.”

Regret filled her as soon as she spoke. She sounded, small, defeated. Vulnerable.

“I have nothing to say.”

Bitterness dripped from every word, each one a new stab, a new wound she’d made herself. She watched that abhorrent mask of disengagement return to his face and she felt her restraint begin to crack. Because this had been the path she had chosen. She had chose to do that to Tech. To them.

Silence. Again. Except it was oppressive. Suffocating. She could practically feel the walls of the Marauder closing in on her again, the dulcet sounds of hyperspace now caging her mind. An echo chamber of thoughts best left in the Dark began to rattle their way around in her mind. She needed to leave.

“Kriff.” It was barely loud enough for her to hear, but enough to dislodge her from the hole she had been digging. “Zoemai, you need to take better care of yourself.”

This time, her legs moved before her mind did. She turned to face him, leaning her head against the side of the headrest now. What was he talking about?

“The blaster wound was avoidable,” he continued exasperated. “We had a plan in place and — “

“I got us out, didn’t I?” Despite her best effort to pack it away, her irritation was clear to see.

Tech sat up, his hands falling to his lap. “And our plan would have gotten us out without having you dive in front of a blaster.”

“It’s part of the job, Tech.”

He snorted and turned to his left where he had left the first aid kit on the seat behind him. “If you knew what the average rate of injury for mercenaries was, you would not be saying this.”

“What.” She pulled herself closer to the back of the seat, forcing herself as upright as she could with her injury and without her cloak slipping down the front of her. “What are you talking about Tech? You guys get injured all the time.”

“Our squad’s occasional injury is accounted for by our line of work’s average.” He paused as he finished putting the supplies away. Then he turned to her, lips pressed together. “You, however, are a statistical anomaly.”

She swallowed. “What do you mean by that?”

That had been the wrong thing to say apparently, because Tech’s expression pulled into something that she couldn’t quite decipher. “You throw yourself into danger at any possible given moment, putting you at a forty-five percent chance to get injured during every mission. A number that seems to go up when you are assisting with the Batch’s missions when it logically should be going down, just as our own chances fall with your presence.”

They get injured less. She looked away, out towards the stars. Away from everything that made her uncomfortable. Upset. Unreasonable. Emotions that drove her to protect and shield everyone she loved and cared about. Decisions she made that had put her on this path in the first place, to love and then lose. And lose and lose and lose. She couldn’t stay here. She’d been wrong to come back.

“Have you considered the fact that you lot get yourself into messes often?”

“Zoemai.” The way he said her name sent a dangerous chill down her spine and she turned back to him. “We can take care of ourselves.”

Angry, but not at her. For her. Caring. Worried. Concerned. He’s looking at her in a way that’s making her stomach do weird things. It’d be so easy —

“Clearly not,” she huffed, choking down the confusing mess of feelings. “You and Hunter were tied up up, Wrecker was busy fighting some giant bug again, Omega had a blaster pointed to her head, and Echo’s nowhere to be found. Let’s not forget that the pirates had Imperials tracking them down so you were on a time crunch and you’re telling me that you had it in hand?”

“It’s not just on missions like this.” His words were soft, not rising to the bait. “Time and time again, you have shown little to no care for yourself even in the most unimportant of missions. You have risked your life for items, replaceable things. It does not make sense."

She felt exposed. Air brushed against her back and she shivered, though the temperature of the Marauder had little to do with it. Her leg twitched and her eyes darted over towards the back of the ship, towards the door that was surely locked up tight right then.

“Zoemai, it is not worth your life. You do not need to die for these things.”

There were a billion different things going on her head, which is the only sensible reason she can come up with later as to why these words fall out of her mouth: “Well, I certainly don’t have to live for it.”

She watched as her own horror at her involuntary admittance was reflected onto his face and panic surged from within her. He’d reply with horror, pity maybe. That’s what they’d all done. Always. But when she looked up at him, all she found was fear.

“Stay down.”

It was a visceral growl, one that Fives could have probably felt in his bones if not for the sudden sharp pain in his chest as a hand gently pushed him back down onto the cold, metal ground. Pain took the forefront of his mind as he wheezed out a breath at the movement, his ribs seemingly squeezing around him. His chest, heart, brain burned for air and he choked in another shallow breath, only for stars to dance around the edges of the dark that beckoned to him. Still, words fought towards the surface.

“Don’t…” He gasped for air, begging for it to come inside. “Tell me — “

“What to do,” Echo finished for him, his words shaky despite his best attempts at a more carefree tone as their brothers shifted uncomfortably around them in the drop ship. “Yeah, heard that one before, right before your karking ass nearly met the Maker.”

It took him a second, maybe two, for Fives to pinpoint exactly what made his brain stutter over the jab. And, oh, Echo was swearing. In public. On the job. Maybe not mid-mission, but definitely during the operation. The mental discomfort of it and what it could mean stroked a desire to turn his head away from his brother. He’d barely turned an inch before his anxiety was replace by yet another stabbing sensation in his chest. His vision flickered and he sunk.

By the time he’d stabilized with a slow return, Echo had returned him to his original position, head facing upwards where he could see the occasional concerned or maybe curious glance from a fellow brother. Causalities were normal, but the clones had always had a bit of a morbid streak. Maybe not the best of signs though if they were sneaking looks. Neither was the fact that Echo’s face remained within the periphery of his eyesight, his vigilance unmoving from him.

That couldn’t be a good sign either.

The ship tilted, just slightly. Not enough for his brothers to have noticed but enough for him to grit his teeth as he did his best to swallow down the noises that were unwillingly clawing their way out of his throat. His chest was beginning to throb in time with his heartbeat and for lack of distraction, his mind went back to what they had been taught in ARC Trooper training.

Pain in the chest was never good. Neither were constricting ribs nor shortness of breathe. Something about internal injuries played in the background of his mind and just as he was grasping onto it, he breathed in — and found himself unable to inhale more. His skin was damp, cold, goosebumps erupting along his arms and he tried to breathe in deeper, more.

But more wouldn’t come. It couldn’t come. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. His chest heaved as he tried again. His body was cold, freezing practically even with all of his gear on. Or was his gear on? He didn’t know. Breathe. Air. Please.

His eyes darted over to Echo, the datapad in his hands and the panic was gone as soon as it had descended. A serenity seemed to fill his mind, warming him from the inside out. Because they’d finished the mission. They’d followed orders. His brother was alive, singed, but alive. And the mission was finished. So everyone should have been happy. Thrilled.

Echo just looked… exhausted. His vod had finally turned his eyes away from him, yet the tension was as clear as day in Fives’ eyes. His shoulders were stiff, his eyes unfocused, and his hands were clenched around the datapad as if it were the only thing stopping him from shattering. He looked fragile.

“I told…” Talking was hard, but when Echo’s eyes focused and landed on him, he found the strength to continue. “You that…”

Echo stared at him. Fives’ words faltered.

“Well, that shouldn’t have happened.”

It was a simple statement, blunt, emotionless. He closed his eyes. It’s anything but. Because it shouldn’t have happened. None of this should have happened. Not the speeder exploding, not the detonator being planted, not the fact that Fives had found himself in a middle of an op gone so terribly wrong of his own making.

“And I know it’s damn well not my fault!” His irate tone commanded the attention of everyone around them and even as Fives’ ears began to ring, the coughs were loud. “If you had just listened — “

A sudden intake of breath and even without looking, he could practically see Echo reeling himself back in. The others had turned deathly quiet, a striking contrast from the barely muted blare of sirens and explosions that thundered outside. Fives forced himself to look back at his brother, his chest screaming at the movement and his heart pounded in time with it. A ticking clock.

Where he expected to see composure, Fives saw a glare. One that spoke of layers of vexation so deep that he winced. Another mistake as his chest seemed to contract into itself and he breathed in as deep as he could, his brain scrambling for extra air that he desperately needed.

“Can’t be… that bad…” His words slipped from him just as his vision did, darkness pulling him under.

It’s quiet. It’s calm. It’s lonely. It’s nauseating. It’s nauseating how much it feels like what he thinks drowning would feel like.

He doesn’t want to drown.

Pain hauled him back up to the surface and then another strike confirmed the shape of a hand. His eyelids were the equivalent of steel, the effort to peel them open an excruciating demand. But a third strike had followed and the first thing his eyes focused on was a distressed Echo. Alarm briskly fell to relief, before it returned to that normal stoic expression of concentration.

An expression that Fives was beginning to appreciate. Or maybe despise. It was a difficult thing to determine when his chest felt as if it were about to concave into itself. Breathing had turned into a thankless chore.

“Eyes open, soldier.” His brother glanced over his shoulder and Fives eyes followed, recognizing the ceiling of the drop ship. A nearby explosion rocked the ship. Right. Operation, argument with Echo, explosion, pain. Lots of pain. “We’re nearly there.”

Almost. Almost.

The allure of exhaustion was strong at the promise of almost. His eyes slid shut.

“Sir, the boys and I were wondering if you were finally free to get drinks.”

Fox looked up from the report that he had been staring at for the last ten minutes to find that Commander Thire was standing in his now-open doorway. His armor looked clean, the red freshly repainted. He tried not to think about his own armor back in his quarters, scattered all around the floor in his haste to get it off, with the only bright fresh red being what was dripping from it. Something must have shown on his face, because his brother was stepping inside of his office, the door sliding shut behind him as he pulled his bucket off.

“Fox?”

It’s quiet. Too soft. Too kind.

“At ease, soldier.” Drawing the boundary, keeping his brothers far away from the hole he found himself in. That he had put himself into. Thire’s deepening frown had him looking for the nearest excuse as he placed down the datapad, something that wasn’t a lie for once. “More reports came in from the lower levels.”

Thire moved his bucket under his right arm as he leaned back against the door frame with a little more than just annoyance on his face. “You can’t be serious. They expect us to go patrolling down there?”

It’s just the lack of sleep Fox finds himself having to chant in his head as he bit down hard on his tongue. An assortment of things fight to come out, the urge to snap of his brother growing with every passing second, statement, remark. Couldn’t they just do their jobs? Like he was?

But Thire was just doing his job. The lower levels weren’t something the Coruscant Guard normally subjected themselves to. Rather, no one did for that matter. Lawless, lightless, violent. His eyes dropped down back down to the report, easily finding the glaring command on it even as he felt Thire’s inquisitive eyes on him.

Objective: Find and eliminate CT-6328. Last spotted on Level 657.

“No, but monitoring them is a part of our jobs,” Fox settled on.

Not a full answer in the least, deflecting rather than providing. And Thire, as always, noticed. He readjust his bucket as his eyes narrowed and Fox could see the man piecing it together. Debating. Evaluating. All of these things should have made him sweat, made him distressed. Afraid.

All he felt was a distinct sense of relief. Finally, someone would break through the glass wall he had constructed between him and his men. The one that had been hastily put together with broken, fragile pieces, under the pressure of all of the Guard, his brothers, his life. Someone else would finally figure out what he had been doing what he had been up and it would finally, finally, all end.

Clone Commander Thire, though, was one of his best for a reason.

Instead of doing any of that, freeing him from the anxiety, the man stood up a little straighter and instead gave Fox a crooked reassuring smile that accomplished none of the comfort it had been clearly been aiming to provide. “That’s our overachieving head of the Guard. Honorable, a workaholic, and constantly doing too much. Have I mentioned workaholic?”

If I told you what they made me do, you wouldn’t be able to say those things with that smile.

He pulled his bucket back on, unaware of the turmoil inside of Fox. “Will let the boys know.”

With his brother’s back to him and the door hissing open, he let his shoulders slump. The brief taste of relief had been so sweet and he longed to feel that weightless again. Just for a second. Instead, he was carrying the burden alone again, one that was threatening to drown him in a sea of red.

“Oh, sir.” Fox looked back up to see Thire turned his head to face him, one foot out the door, but hesitant. “If you change your mind, we’ll be at 79’s.”

Not trusting his voice, Fox gave a small nod. And he could feel Thire’s blinding smile through the bucket.

If I told you what they made me do, you wouldn’t smile at me.

The door closed with a hiss and silence prevailed again as he was left alone. Fear led him to pick up the datapad again, despite it’s contents, but it was the disgust at himself that led him to keep reading. That drove him to keep going. To ignore the fear, to ignore his own thoughts.

If I told you what they made me do, you wouldn’t be able to look at me the same.

So Fox doesn’t think about about what he’s done, what he’s doing very often. If he did, rations wouldn’t stay down and then he’d be wasting even more resources than if he did thinking about was actually happening. One night of mourning had been all that was needed (provided). Anymore wasn’t necessary (would get him decommissioned).

There wasn’t anything else for him to do other than place one foot in front of the other on this path that he’d been started on. The one that had started with CT-5555.

Yet, a wave of disgust at his own cowardice rose up. No, not CT-5555. Fives.

In the safety of his office, the one where he could barely hear the drills being ran down in the courtyard, the officers marching down through the nearby hallways, he let himself remember. Forced himself to remember.

The way that Rex had looked at him in that moment. The anger, frustration, grief that had been on such blatant display that had him feeling like an intrusive stranger. The way that Jesse and Kix had gone through the same rotation of expressions as their Commander as he explained to them what had happened down in the courtyard below. The struggle transparent on their faces before both settled on varying looks of grim acceptance that had him closing the blinds to his office before he could see what expressions they made next.

The way that none of it had been spoken out loud to him after everything that had happened even as the months passed. Clones died, the Republic moved on, and so did what was left of the GAR. But Fox hadn’t. He hadn’t moved away from the pity and sympathy he’d been shown when the other Commander had finally turned to Fox.

It hadn’t changed even as Fives’ body went past them, his men carrying it back to command. Hadn’t changed even as Rex noticed his hands shaking.

His blaster had still been warm, almost scalding with a non-existent heat, so with lack of anything else to hold, he had pulled off his helmet. And Rex had stood there right beside him, misty-eyed but understanding. Understanding. Gentle. Murmurings of the fact that it wasn’t his fault. That it was a hard, difficult thing to do and that Fives had been a threat at the end of it all. He’d gone crazy and had a blaster, had a commander and a Jedi trapped in a ray field. He had made the difficult call, the right call.

Except it had been his fault and it had been the easiest thing he’d ever done, but not the right thing. And that had been the beginning of the end.

His execution (because what else could he call it?) of his brother was quick to spread. The Corries had always stood by himself and continued to do so even in the wake of this news, but the other legions… The other legions began to peel themselves away, staying away from the Guard as much as they could. He wasn’t blind to that.

And then they had come. Covert Ops. Their official name for those who didn’t have high enough clearance to know what they were actually called. The Decommissioners for those who unfortunately knew just enough of the rumors to know that they were true. And he had been asked to carry out orders.

Key

☼ gen | ♥ romantic | ♦ angst | ♣ fluff ⌂ headcanon | ♪ drabble | ♠ fic

Mix

Clones & How They Deal With the Existential Crisis of a Crush P. 1 ♥ ⌂ Clones & Their Nervous Habits/Coping Mechanisms ♦ ⌂

Squad 99

Omega & the Bad Batch (siblings) ☼ ⌂ 2025 Whumptober - Day 3: Omega & Echo ♦ ♪

501st

Clone Medic Kix Headcanons ☼ ♦ ⌂ 2025 Whumptober - Day 1: Fives & Echo ☼ ♦ ♪

The Coruscant Guard

2025 Whumptober - Day 6: Fox ☼ ♦ ♪

OC Content

Star Fall TBA (Tech x ex-Jedi Mercenary!oc)

Guidelines

things i don't do: clonecest, selfcest, noncon/rape, anything suggestion with a minor