There used to be stories some of the CTs told to each other. Mostly things that the trainers had told them, old campfire tales that were meant to make you jump at every shadow. Like the krayt dragons and the rancors. The old warlords and the legends of sith.
There was also the stories of the command class.
They were stranded in the middle of a swamp planet when Rex is reminded of this.
“I used to hear stories about how you would scare some of the CT classes.” Rex brought up where he’s propped against a very convenient tree. Half his body is a bruise and the other half is fine in the way of not-pain which means tomorrow it will probably be his whole body that hurts.
“Are you scared?” Wolffe asked lightly, where he kneeled next to Rex as he stripped a mangled comm unit. Rex considered it. He never realized how accurate some of those stories had been. In the shaded light of dusk, Wolffe’s eye shined in a way that wasn’t entirely human. When he had grinned earlier as they had dug through the downed ancient fighter unit from some battle ages ago, his teeth had seemed awfully sharp.
“I don’t think you would ever hurt me,” Rex said instead. Fear was unconscious and of the unknown. He knew Wolffe though. Or the part of Wolffe he was willing to show others. Some of his batchmates also used to tell Rex he had more bravery then sense when it came to his own safety.
Wolffe chuckled, reaching out he rubbed the fuzz on Rex’s head, Rex smacked his arm away. “I won’t let anything hurt you either, puppy.”
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Wolffe is a space mermaid. Part of the monster AUs Also on AO3.
It’s in the hyperlanes the giant creature circles them. Hard to see, it’s just impressions of a long dark body.
“It’s alright!” General Skywalker yells. He jumps over the observational platform and gets closer to the viewpoint window. “I’d never thought I’d get to see one,” He laughs, a barking thing of surprise and joy. “Obi-Wan will be so jealous!”
“What is it?” Ashoka asks. She’s beside Rex, watching as something the looks like a glowing fin flashes out ahead of them.
“A space ghost!” Anakin grins, “No one knows what they are, we just get sightings every once in awhile from traders that frequent the hyperlanes.”
The room had quieted down, a few heads peeking in from the halls to see what was going on. The rippling muscle under a smooth black skin as it twists over the ship again.
“What’s it doing?” Rex leaned over the rail as it spun out of view.
“I don’t know,” Anakin shrugged.
“I don’t think it wants to hurt us,” Ashoka softly murmured. Her eyes have that glassy look as if she is listening to something very far.
“No,” Anakin agreed, still smiling out the window in delighted wonder, “It won’t hurt us.”
The great beast danced out of sight, everyone still quiet in the moments after. There is so much in the universe Rex has yet to see. That distant echo of possibility seems to sing to him. For a moment, he is reminded how vast the universe is.
This is why I wake up every morning, Rex thinks.
**
He falls asleep fast when he hits his night cycle. Instead of the comforting nothingness or the nonsensical remembrance of the past, he finds himself in the deep void of space, standing on a platform that looks almost like a belt of a galaxy. The cosmos stretch out behind and before him, the lights of a thousand stars singing and dying around him. It is beautiful, in that way something great and large and unknown can be beautiful from a distance.
It stills something in his heart, the void of distant space.
“Do you like it?” Someone asked. When Rex looked back up the path of stars, a clone he has never met stood a little ahead.
“What is this?” Rex walked up to meet him. With each step waves rippled out.
“Just a dream,” the clone said. Closer now Rex can make out the other’s face a bit better. His eyes are odd, one is nothing but black space, an odd oil sheen across it and the other seems almost like it’s mechanical. A scar stretches across the same eye as if someone had slashed it with a sharp blade.
“Well it’s an interesting dream,” Rex said. He grinned at this unknown brother. The other’s lips twitch as if the thought of a smile hadn’t quite made it yet. From his starboard side part of the sky seems to rotate. Closer, closer, till there is as spectacular view of clouds, dust and light.
Rex wondered what it was that created such a show.
“A star is being born,” the other told him. He looked to the side, watching Rex as Rex traced his eyes over the gaseous flames. “Do you like it?” He repeated into the quiet.
“Why would that matter?” Rex huffed a laugh. The other clone gaze was very intense.
“If you like it, it’s yours,” The clone held himself very collected. A straight line in the big empty space.
“And if I don’t?” Rex watched him now, half incredulous.
“I haven’t decided.”
**
“It’s back,” Rex said to no one several weeks later. He’s in the port side rec room that no one uses. One entire side of it is just a viewport. He can watch the space ghost better here, the ropes of long body that twist in and out as it dances around. Hyperspace is white streaks of light that frame the racing creature.
Just as before, it’s hard for Rex’s heart to truly grasp it. He feels small, in this great infinitesimal reaching glory.
He sits for hours, watching in the quiet of space.
**
“Have I met you before?” Rex asks the clone from his strange lucid dreams.
The clone blinked at him blandly. “I am Wolffe,” he said. His black, oily eye seemed to shine at him.
“Well, Wollfe, you’re an odd one.” Rex nudged him gently with his arm. Wolffe side-eyed him, it felt judging. “That’s not a bad thing,” Rex told him. Suddenly worried the vode would take it wrong.
From the corner of his eye he can see the space ghost, or parts of it, slip down below them. By the time Rex processes it and looks down, it is already gone.
“I love to watch the ghost,” Rex thought aloud. “It’s like something so full of wonder, I can barely comprehend it all.” Beside him Wolffe stayed silent, watched him with some sort of hidden amusement.
**
“Oh,” General Kenobi breathed. He is standing next to the comm station when the space ghost shows up mid jump. This time is different. The air seems to vibrate as if its a song that has been forgotten, just out of ear shot and something you know you’ve heard before. “I didn’t expect this.”
“I told you,” Anakin smirked. Beside him Ashoka seemed to fade in on herself as she listened.
“Is that safe?” Cody asked when part of the creature dipped in front of the fast traveling ship.
“It hasn’t hurt us yet,” Rex shook his head.
Kenobi looked up, as if he could see through the metal overhead. The strange song changed octave. The long-distance comms started a odd sort of static noise, as if picking up a mess of broken signal.
“I think it’s lonely,” Obi-Wan said. He closed his eyes, humming a weak flat imitation of the song reverberating in the air. “Plo would love this.”
“Master! Do you think we can record the singing?” Ashoka startled up at the thought.
“I’m not sure how we would,” Obi-Wan smiled. “I don’t believe that’s an actual sound.”
“It’s beautiful,” Rex said.
Obi-Wan looked at him fondly, “It is.”
**
“Are you lonely?” Rex asked later. He somehow knew he would dream this cycle. The idea had bothered him. The idea you could be that alone. In the dream Wolffe had sat on the star path, dragging his hand over it and watching the waves as the stars settled.
“Why would you ask that?” Wollfe leaned back, waving at the spot beside him. Rex took the offer, letting his legs hang over and into the dark space.
“I don’t know. General Kenobi seems to think the sea ghost is lonely. It got me thinking about what it’s like to be so far away from everyone you care for,” Wolffe leaned closer. The warmth of his shoulder a solid welcoming presence. The black eye had some specks in it, Rex realized. Small, little white lights, like the sky around them. “Are you lonely?” Rex repeated.
“Would you stay, if I asked you to?” Wolffe asked instead.
“I-” Rex cut himself off. Unsure. Is Wolffe just a dream? Is he a odd look at a memory Rex can’t remember? Everything about this feels so bright. Too bright for reality, maybe.
“Then why would it matter.” Wolffe’s tone is bitter. He looked tired. After a moment he began to hum a slow tune that felt almost familiar. It was odd, almost like there were several layers of it all doing a different part.
There is a tiny planet that orbits a few feet out. As he watched, the atmosphere seems to wave in dazzling displays of color as the magnetic field interacted with solar winds.
“There is so much I want to know,” Rex confided. “I don’t know if I will ever get the chance to find out.”
Something touched the back of his hand, when Rex looked down it’s to watch as Wolffe’s finger wind around his.
“Did you know,” Wolffe started, his voice light and misleading, “Stars are born as binary pairs? They circle each for millennia, till one gets far enough out it just shoots away.”
From the corner of his eye, Rex can see the dark shape of the space ghost as it rolled underneath.
It’s just habit for Rex to check the casualty list. He didn’t expect to ever see Wolffe’s name there.
“Sir,” Jesse says quietly from Rex’s shoulder, “I know you asked for the casualties list…” Rex knows that tone, and it chills him to his core. Jesse is never that serious, unless-
Rex turns on his heel to look his lieutenant in the eye. He doesn’t want to hear the news Jesse brought, but he needs to know. He has to know. “What is it?” he asks, and Jesse swallows hard, handing over the datapad to let Rex see for himself.
He knew what it would be, but reading it is like a punch in the chest. His heart stutters and skips a beat, and the galaxy narrows to the designation and the status on the screen in front of him: ‘CC-3636 - ‘killed in action.’ He’s barely aware of Jesse’s hand steadying him, or the way the bridge has gone completely silent, all eyes on him. He takes one harsh breath, then a second, easing the tight bands around his chest. “As you were.” His voice is as steady as he can make it, and he squares his shoulders, lifting his chin.
He strides out, already hearing the whispers of the men behind him. He counts the steps until he reaches his small room, his quarters somehow too large and too cramped at the same time as he hits the deck, his back sliding down the door as soon as it shuts. A choked sob escapes his throat and he leans forward until his forehead touches his knees, curling in on himself as he breaks apart beneath the wave of grief that slams into him. He should have been prepared for this. He and Wolffe, they’re soldiers. Any damned day could be their last, but… He can’t breathe again. Had he really been so kriffing stupid as to believe that his love could keep Wolffe alive? He’d imagined a thousand different futures, and in every kriffing one, they’d ended up finding each other after the war, after they were both safe, and living the rest of their lives together. Not this, never this.
Hours pass. He ends up making it to his bunk, reading the words over and over as though they would change if he just reads them one more time. “Fuck, Wolffe, what did you do?” he whispers to empty air. Probably some damn stupid heroic shit, he was always good at that, no matter how much he claims - claimed - to be an asshole. He thinks about Boost and Sinker. They’re probably even more of a mess than he is; the Pack can’t be a Pack without Wolffe. And that, for some reason he will never know, sets him off again.
By the time he ends up breathless and shuddering, he becomes aware of a knock on the door - by the sound of it, they’ve been knocking for a while. “Yeah?” His voice is hoarse and barely audible, and he coughs.
“Open the damn door, Rex, or I’m breaking it down.” Cody, of course it’s Cody. He would have come running as soon as he got back with Kenobi and heard the news. Gods all, he sounds pissed, Rex thinks distantly, and he finally drags himself off the bunk to palm open the door. He’s aware of being wrapped in plastoid-covered arms and a body that smells like ozone and blaster oil before he even knows Cody is in the room with him. “Shit, vod. Come here. He’s okay. He’s- He’s not fine, but some kriffing di’kut put his name on the casualties, Ventress took his eye, it’s gonna leave a scar, but he’s alright.”
And just like that, he can’t breathe again, though this time he’s not sure if he’s crying or laughing. He feels like he’s floating, giddy with relief. He’s alright. He’s going to kriffing kill whatever idiot put Wolffe’s name on the list, but right now, all he can think is that they have another chance. It feels like hope.
