#sw jesse

Fives had woken up to find a bucket of yellow paint next to his bunk. An open bucket of paint, which he had unfortunately knocked over before he realised it was there. He looked at the mess on the barracks floor and sighed. Thankfully, the bucket seemed to have been almost empty, but the force he had hit it with meant the spill ran underneath the bunks beside his. That was going to be a pain to clean up. He just hoped he could manage it before Rex got back from his meeting with the general.

“What the hell, Fives!”

Dogma was glaring at him when Fives looked up. He held up a piece of his armour – a vambrace – coated in the same bright yellow that was now decorating the floor.

“Wasn’t me,” Fives defended, raising his arms. “I have no idea what happened.”

Dogma didn’t look entirely convinced – and Fives couldn’t blame him, since this was exactly that kind of thing he might do for entertainment – but his expression softened from murderous to irritated.

“What’s going on?” Echo mumbled, sticking his head over the edge of the top bunk.

Fives shrugged, gesturing to the floor.

Echo blinked at the neon mess, rubbed his eyes to make sure it wasn’t just the remnants of sleep clouding his vision, and looked back to Fives. “What did you do?”

“It wasn’t me,” Fives repeated. “The bucket of paint was next to my bed when I woke up, and I knocked it over. I swear I have no idea how it got there.”

“Someone painted my armour,” Dogma added, grumbling and holding up the vambrace.

Echo hummed, stretching. He swung his legs off the opposite side of the bed and hopped down, far from the risk of landing in paint. “Mine, too,” he stated, inspecting his pile of armour stacked beside the bunks.

Fives twisted, and noted with a curse that his armour was also sporting a new paintjob. The culprit had, at least, had the decency to leave his helmet and the intricate paintwork on it untouched. When he glanced over at Echo’s armour, he found that the blue handprint Rex had left on it back at the Rishi outpost was also untouched.

“Well, if it wasn’t you,” Dogma began, “who was it?”

“Hardcase?” Echo suggested.

Dogma shook his head. “Kix still has him in medbay.”

Fives hummed. He stood, doing his best to avoid the paint, and stretched. “I can think of one other person.”

As one, the three of them looked across the barracks, zeroing in on a specific bunk. Dogma was across the room in seconds, with Fives close on his heels and leaving a trail of yellow footprints that he wouldn’t notice until later.

“Jesse!”

Jesse bolted upright, hand reaching for an absent blaster. Dogma’s voice was five times louder than required, and Fives winced as brothers caught in the crossfire shifted in their beds, losing any opportunity to sleep in on what should have been a quiet day.

As Jesse’s brain caught up with the situation and the lack of imminent danger, he scrubbed a hand over his face. “What?”

Dogma tossed his vambrace to land in Jesse’s lap.

Jesse picked it up and blinked. “Why is it yellow?” he questioned.

“You tell me,” Dogma answered, arms crossed.

“What?” Jesse repeated.

“I know it was you!”

“I don’t know what you-”

Fives sighed. “Cut it out!”

The two of them fell silent, resorting to staring each other down instead. They had been – and still were – so engrossed in figuring the other out that they had failed to notice the fact that would derail Dogma’s line of questioning. Echo had made his way over by now, hovering at Fives’ shoulder.

“He got Jesse, too,” Fives stated, finally catching Dogma’s attention in its entirety.

“Ah, kriff,” Jesse muttered, dropping the vambrace to inspect his helmet. He stood as he flipped it over, revealing yellow paint decorating the inside almost as much as the outside, and looked at Dogma. “You thought I did this?”

“Didn’t seem unreasonable.”

A small crowd had gathered around, some of them carrying their own affected pieces of armour. If they had been disgruntled to be woken by Dogma, they forgot about that when faced with the neon yellow joining the blue each of them had spent hours painting onto shiny white plastoid.

“What now?” Dogma asked, retrieving his vambrace. “Seems like everyone in here is a victim.”

“Maybe it wasn’t one of us,” Jesse suggested.

Echo nodded. “There’s security cameras in the hallway, we could-”

Fives held up a hand. “Not necessary,” he stated, placing his hand on Echo’s shoulder and spinning him around.

“Fives, what are you doing?” Echo protested, trying to fight his brother off.

Someone gasped. Fives wasn’t sure that level of drama was warranted.

“What?” Echo asked again, twisting in an attempt to see what everyone was looking at.

“You should’ve picked a darker colour,” Fives answered. “Neon yellow stands out on your blacks.”

Fives didn’t miss the slight twitch at the corner of Echo’s mouth as he spun back around. “I have no idea how that got there.”

“Yeah, and I’m a Weequay,” Dogma snorted. “Should’ve guessed.”

“I’m innocent,” Echo proclaimed, despite his losing battle to keep a straight face.

Jesse tossed his helmet to Echo. “Better get that cleaned,” he ordered, “before the captain gets back from his meeting.”

“Fine, fine,” Echo conceded, sighing as a pile of yellow helmets began to build up on the floor in front of him. “Someone grab me the paint stripper and I’ll get your helmets clean.”

“Oh, not just the helmets,” Jesse stated. “I want all of it spotless.”

The pile continued to grow. “You can’t be serious,” Echo deadpanned. “I can’t clean all of these that fast!”

“Better get started, then,” Dogma told him, adding his vambrace to the pile.

“Fives,” Echo pleaded. “Help me out here.”

Fives turned away to fetch his own armour. “Don’t forget the floor when you’re done.”