They don’t reject each other’s blood. Within the Vode, everyone is a universal donor. If you don’t have some sort of blood borne disease, you’re eligible for Sharing and Caring (which is a terrible name, Jesse). It makes for easier treatment. Some days, Kix wonders if his body can even tell the difference between his blood and that of his brothers. Do they all produce the same proteins, have the same cell shape, or are there subtle differences? Exactly how sensitive is the immune system?
He strips his gloves and dumps them in the hazardous waste bin, careful not to get any of the congealing blood on his skin. He’s all filled up for now, doesn’t need any more. Pink could keep it, not that he would need it where he was going.
It’s just him and Jesse now. It’s not, of course, not really, but fuck, it used to be Kix and Jesse and Hardcase and Pink and Jules. Kix and Jesse and Hardcase and Pink and Jules, and then Kix and Jesse and Hardcase and Pink, and then Kix and Jesse and Pink, and Kix can’t fucking—
“Hey, Kixy-Stix.”
“Jesse—“
“Hey, hey, I know. Come on, none of that.” Jesse comes up behind him, catching Kix’s hands where they’re scratching at his arms and pinning them to the sink, hand over identical hand. “None of that. Wash your hands.” Jesse turns the water on and holds the soap dispenser up to him.
“He’s, Pink, he’s, I couldn’t—“
Jesse squirts soap into Kix’s hands. “Scrub. I know.”
Kix could wash his hands to medbay standard in his sleep. “Jesse…”
“There’s nothing more you could have done.”
“Jesse—“
“Kix. They tore him apart. I saw him. You can’t do that to yourself.” Jesse turns the water off and hands him a few flimsitowels. “There’s nothing more you could have done.”
There’s nothing more he can do. His knees buckle and Jesse grabs him under the arms, pulls him back-to-chest and walks them back to the wall.
Kix tries not to cry in the medbay. He needs to look put-together for the vode who can’t be.
“Come here,” Jesse says, spinning Kix to face him and pulling him into a crushing hug.
Well, they’re not really in the medbay proper. This is Kix’s office. There aren’t any patients in here.
“Aw, Kixy.” Jesse sweeps a hand up and down his back, pressing hard enough to make his ribs creak. Kix’s face grows uncomfortably warm, and he’s sure Jesse’s blacks will be wet when he pulls away. “One of the kiddos is having a rough night in the barracks,” Jesse says after a moment, “and I think this misery needs some company.”
“Yeah,” Kix croaks. “Probably does.”
Jesse pulls back enough to drag Kix into a shockingly gentle keldabe, nudging his forehead and knocking their noses together. “Okay. Come on.”
Fives is in Kix’s bunk almost before Kix is in Kix’s bunk, dragging his blanket and pillow behind him. He says nothing, just shoves himself into the corner and waits for Jesse and Kix to get in with him.
Fives has been their shadow for the better part of a year now, swaggering along next to Jesse like he’s always been there. Kix’s heart aches for him.
He did warn Fives and Echo about getting too close. He warned them repeatedly, but it didn’t seem to take. Tubie twins are always hard to separate. It’s not as though Kix wanted to deprive them of their bond, he just.
What happened was inevitable, and Kix wouldn’t be the first medic to lose both halves of a pair to one shot.
He quirks an eyebrow at Jesse, who’s adding his own bedding to the pile. Fives is upset, but the day Jesse refers to Fives as ‘kiddo’ is the day Kix peacefully retires. Jesse points across the barracks.
Oh. Tup. Poor fucking kid.
Fives has had time to heal, but Tup’s wounds are weeks old, and every day they don’t hear back from Kamino, they’re torn open again. They won’t, Kix knows. They’ll never hear a word about Dogma again, not matter how many inquiries they send. Tup is worried he’s dead. If half of what the medics back home manage to tell them is true, Kix hopes he is.
Tup’s curled under his blanket, pillow over his head and back to the room. Atom’s watching from the bunk opposite, and Appo’s got half an eye on him. No one approaches him, though, and no one shares his bunk.
Kix has known Tup for three months, ever since the ad came bouncing into his medbay two days into his deployment holding his arm at an awkward angle. He knows Tup’s a week and a half shy of nine, he knows that he’s got a bad ankle from a training accident, he knows he smiles like he breathes, and he knows that, before Umbara, Rex had been eyeing him for early ARC training. He also knows that Tup never turns down a cuddle or a chance to talk.
Well, he hadn’t before Umbara.
Jesse slides into the now-crowded bunk, propping himself up on the pillows and opening his arms. When they were cadets, Jesse’d joke that his ribs were going to grow with a Kix-shaped indent pressed into them by the hours they spent laying like this. Every time, Kix would launch into a lecture about the impossibility of something like that and every time, Jesse would tackle him to make him stop. Now, Kix wonders if Jesse was right. It certainly seems that way when he falls into Jesse’s arms, fitting into him like they’e puzzle pieces, or Fives and Echo.
Fives crawls up next to them, snuggling into Jesse’s side and throwing an arm and a leg over Kix. The breaths in Kix’s ear are hitching and unsteady, but Fives’s face is dry and his eyes are closed, so Kix doesn’t mention it. After all, Fives hadn’t mentioned the sheer amount of blood on the whites Kix had stripped off before climbing into bed. There’s nothing to be said, really.
Of course, Jesse finds something to say anyway. “Sleep tight, wackjobs,” he whispers. No one answers, but he sets a hand on the back of Kix’s head and rubs back and forth over his stubble until the world starts to go fuzzy.
Kix doesn’t know when they went to sleep or how long it’s been, but there are still a few lights on when he wakes to Fives snoring in his ear and a sharp fucking elbow digging into his kidney. What…?
He blinks grit from his eyes and wills himself to stay awake just long enough to get a look at the new addition to their pile. It’s Tup, somehow wedged between Fives and Jesse, limbs and hair everywhere. Kix relocates the offending elbow, tucking it closer to Tup and rolling back onto his stomach. Jesse mumbles something unintelligible and pulls him closer, not settling until Kix slips his arms back under Jesse’s and settles his cheek on his chest.
Somewhere in the barracks, the last light turns off. Kix goes back to sleep.