1.
“Echo, Iloveyou.”
Echo laughs, wrapping his legs around Fives’s hips and flipping them so he’s pinning Fives to the bunk. “I love you, too. You’re drunk.”
Fives giggles. “Noooo, no, no, I’m not. I love you and you’re my favorite brother.” He reaches and and puts clumsy, warm hands on either side of Echo’s face. “You’re the best. You’re so good, you’re smart and strong and you’re the best brother ever. We’re twins.”
Echo leans forward, flopping onto Fives’s chest. “I think we’re all twins. You know, clones and all that?”
Fives growls. “You know what I’m talking about. You know, you know, you know we’re special. You’re spe’spec’special.”
Echo laughs, hums into Fives’s chest. “Thanks. You’re still drunk. How much of that moonshine did you have?”
Fives hums back and the sound rumbles through Echo’s chest. “Enough. All of it. Enough to fall asleep. I just want to sleep without nightmares, yeah?”
Oh, Fives. “Yeah. Maybe talk to me next time, okay? Instead of drinking that much?” tangles his legs with Fives’s, shifting until his bony fucking hips aren’t digging into Echo’s kidneys.
“Well, now I have alcohol and you and I’m happy and I’m going to sleep now.” Fives yawns, rubs his socked feet up and down Echo’s calves. “I love you. Goin’a sleep now.”
“I love you, too.”
2.
“Here,” Wrecker says, handing Rex a water bottle. “Tech says you should drink something.”
“Thanks.” Rex takes it with his off hand, careful not to jostle Echo. He’d fallen asleep nearly as soon as he sat down, slumped against Rex and breathing with a labored, heavy wheeze. He’ll need to see Kix sooner rather than later.
Rex cracks the bottle and drinks half of it in one go, plenty thirsty from the day’s exploits. Well, two days. They didn’t exactly have time to sleep mid-mission. Echo mumbles something and shifts, rubbing his cheek against Rex’s neck. Rex brings his hand up and carefully, so carefully, pets Echo’s head. His skin is cold and rough and his skull feels like an eggshell waiting to break.
Maybe half an hour ago, Hunter had come in and wrapped them in a colorful patchwork quilt. It’s soft and Rex pulls it closer around them, tucking it under Echo’s leg. Echo sighs, shifting impossibly closer.
He’s shaking, ice cold even through both of their blacks. The Bad Batch had lent him an extra set, one of Hunter’s, a bit smaller than the standard sets. Even so, they’re baggy on Echo, hanging off him. Rex sets the water down and shifts sideways on the bench, getting his hands under Echo’s thighs and hefting him into his lap.
Echo stirs, frowning and mumbling something under his breath. “S’op movin’ so much, Fives. ‘M trynna sleep.”
Rex chokes. “I’m… Sorry, Echo. Just getting comfortable.” He readjusts the blanket and Echo’s face smoothes out. He’s asleep again.
Fuck.
3.
The Bad Batch is just as tactile as any other squad. Logically, Echo knew to expect that, but they seemed so other when he’d arrived that seeing them interacting like vod was something of a shock. Just like Torrent, they wake up and train and eat and argue and play and sleep together, living on a tiny ship in a perfect give-and-take.
They cuddle, too. Maybe even more than Torrent. Makes sense, really. Out here in space, alone except for each other. Presumably, alone even on Kamino. Of course they’d be tactile. Echo sees Tech curled up with his head on Crosshair’s thigh while they watch a holovid. He sees Wrecker stretched out on top of Hunter after a long, overwhelming day. Crosshair and Hunter shoulder to shoulder fixing a blaster. Wrecker shoving his way into Tech’s bunk in the middle of the night when the nightmares came for them.
Echo doesn’t engage and isn’t engaged. He’s not sure how to go about inserting himself into that dynamic, or if he’s wanted there. He wants, but. But.
He’s not ready. They’re not ready. It’ll come.
Or it won’t.
It’s going to be a bad day. Echo knows this before he is conscious of anything else. He aches everywhere. Places he shouldn’t be able to ache. Limbs he doesn’t have anymore. He’s not sure he’s going to be able to stand.
Shortly after the initial spike of pain fades, Echo realizes what’s woken him up. Someone’s throwing up in the ‘fresher, interrupted with choked-off sobs and cursing. Hunter, up with a migraine.
Echo squints at the clock. 0403. Crosshair’s bed is empty.
“Sarge.” Echo can just barely hear him over the retching. “Hunter, I’m coming in.” The door slides open. Echo closes his eyes on the sound of Crosshair getting Hunter to swallow some anti-nausea and pain meds. He tries to go back to sleep.
He hurts.
Heat sound don’t want to go this way should have told Fives goodbye should have
Stop.
Cutting him open he can’t even see what they’re putting on him this time can’t feel anything anymore
Stop.
He’s never going to die he’s going to be here forever anything else is a hallucination
The edge of his bed dips and his blanket is pulled back. Cool air hits him and it actually feels nice on his feverish skin. Long hair tickles his chin and he realizes it’s Hunter crawling into bed with him.
“What..?”
“You hurt,” Hunter slurs. “I can… hear it. Taste it.” Hunter’s outline, dim in the light of the ‘fresher, is wilted, hunched over like even now he’s trying to protect his head. “Smells like credit chips an’, an’, an’ starch.”
“Oh.” Echo didn’t know pain had a smell.
“You’ve got a fever.”
“Probably. Low-grade.”
“Mm-hmm.” Hunter grabs Echo’s waist, gentle, and pulls him on top of him, wrapping him up and pressing his fingers into the spots on his shoulders where the tension is the worst. Echo hisses, but Hunter doesn’t let up until some of the knots dissolve. “Go back t’sleep.”
Hunter sounds awful and his breath smells sharp like mouthwash, but he’s warm and he’s solid and he’s not explosions or darkness or lonely pain. Hunter wasn’t there when Echo wasn’t in hell, so it logically follows that Echo is not in hell. Hell doesn’t have overgrown teenagers with bony elbows and curly ponytails trying to make sure Echo sleeps through his pain even though Hunter can’t. Echo settles against Hunter and takes a deep breath, willing the nausea to fade.
The light in the ‘fresher clicks off and soft footsteps make their way towards Echo’s rack. He sleeps on the bottom bunk, below an empty bed, so Crosshair’s looking down at him when he comes up next to the bed.
“You need meds?” he murmurs, voice as flat as ever.
Echo takes stock of himself. He’s heavy with oncoming sleep already, warm between Hunter and the blankets. “No, I’ll be alright.”
Crosshair grunts. “On your head be it.” He turns away, backlit by Tech’s nightlight. “Wake me if you need anything. Either of you.”
“I will.” Hunter mumbles something affirmative and slips his hands under Echo’s sweater, moving to massage the muscles that were warped the worst by Echo’s spinal implants. “Cross,” Echo calls as Crosshair puts a hand on the rungs of his rack ladder. He stops. “Thank you.”
Crosshair doesn’t move for a long moment. “Don’t mention it. Reg.”
Echo smirks into the dark.
4.
“Hey, take a deep breath, kid. Hunter’s going to be alright. Wrecker and Tech are looking for him, yeah?” Echo pulls Omega into his lap, letting her wriggle around until his prosthetics aren’t digging into her legs. “You know him. He’s tough. Nothing’s going to happen to him.”
Omega buries her tiny face in Echo’s shoulder and wraps her tiny arms around his neck and Echo always misses Fives at the oddest moments but why now? “I’m scared,” she whispers. “I’m scared, Echo. I don’t want him to die.”
Echo hikes her up higher on his lap and starts rubbing her back. They’ve been working with her on saying what she feels straight out, as she feels it. It’s been good for her alexithymia, as well as for helping Hunter understand what’s going on. Three autistic people on a ship does not an emotionally clear environment make. “I’m scared, too,” he says. “I always get scared when my family’s in trouble. It’s normal. It’s okay.”
“Does it ever get easier?” She sniffs wetly, picking her head up just enough to scrub at her face. “It feels… awful.”
Echo sighs, and she sighs with him, so he takes another deep breath, lingering a moment to gather his thoughts and let her gather her emotions. “Yes. It doesn’t stop hurting so badly, but it gets easier. You get better at dealing with it.”
“I don’t want to,” she whispers. “I don’t want to get used to it. I want Hunter to come home.”
“He will, Omega. He will. I promise.”
Don’t make me a liar, Hunter. Don’t you make me a liar.
The ramp opens with its usual slow rumble, but the footsteps coming up are heavy and quick. Omega snaps awake and Echo keeps a hand on the back of her head, holding her gaze away from the door until Tech and Wrecker come stumbling through, Hunter in Wrecker’s arms. There’s minimal blood, though, and when Wrecker sets him down, he’s coughing and scrabbling at the wall and trying to sit up, so Echo lets Omega go.
She’s out of his arms in an instant, plastered against Hunter’s side and doing her best to prop him up. “Hunter!”
Hunter grins and his teeth are bloody. “Hey, kid,” he rasps. “Hey, hey, it’s alright.” He throws a clumsy arm over her shoulders. “Oh, don’t cry, it’s alright. Takes more than that to keep me down.”
Tech’s advancing on Hunter with a hypo and a roll of bandages. Echo should get up and help. He takes a moment, though, to watch Omega burrow into Hunter’s side. Hunter runs bloody, sooty fingers through her hair, leaving rust-red streaks in the blonde.
“Gotcha, kiddo. I got”—he breaks off, coughing—”gotcha.”
5.
Crosshair’s shaking. He won’t come near Omega. Hunter tried to wipe a bit of dirt off his forehead and he nearly jumped out of his skin. When Wrecker pulls him into a bearhug and forcibly drags him to the cuddle pile, he makes sure to put Hunter, Tech, and Wrecker between himself and Omega.
Echo won’t let him be on the outside, though.
He settles down on Crosshair’s open side, pressing close enough that Cross is forced to properly cuddle up to Wrecker. Crosshair tries to push him away, but Echo stands his ground. There’s nowhere for him to go, anyway. Not with the wall at his back.
“Fuck off,” Crosshair spits, but it’s got none of his usual venom. He looks sad. “Fuck’s wrong with you?”
Echo doesn’t respond, just lies on his side with his head pillowed on one arm, watching.
Crosshair’s got dark circles under his eyes and his face is thinner than before. He’s got sharper cheekbones than the rest of them, but that’s not saying much, and his face looks oddly out of proportion with the rounded bones jutting out. It’s meant to be softer, meant to have a bit more fat in the cheeks. Meat on his bones, that’s the expression. The one Fives had always said when Echo wouldn’t eat the food in the dining hall (it’s the wrong texture, always the wrong texture). ‘Echo, you need some more meat on your bones.’
Wrecker and Tech will make breakfast in the morning. Hunter and Omega will keep reading through the newest book they’ve found and Echo will tinker with the probe droid he’s been retrofitting with solar-powered repulsors. Crosshair will… have to find a new place. So much has changed.
He’s back. He’s okay. He’s himself.
They will fix him.
Crosshair lies tense for endless minutes, long enough that Wrecker and Omega start to snore before all the fight goes out of him at once. His shoulders drop. His eyes close. A tear makes its way down his face, tracing the line of a new scar. “Ni ceta.”
Crosshair hadn’t wanted to learn Mando’a. ‘Reg bullshit.’
“I forgive you,” Echo says. “They forgive you. It wasn’t your fault.”
Crosshair’s chest heaves. His shoulders shake. “I. I. I’m sorry.”
“I know. I forgive you. I know.” Echo moves and Crosshair doesn’t try to get away, falls into him when Echo opens his arms.
Crosshair’s a silent crier, like Droidbait, like Gigi, like Momma. Echo holds him as he shakes and his tears soak straight through Echo’s blacks. “I know,” he murmurs over and over again. “I saw you. I see you. I forgive you. We missed you.”
Echo falls asleep shortly after Crosshair, too exhausted to care that he’s uncomfortable in this position or that Crosshair should probably have been made to drink another canteen of water before bed. Crosshair’s shaking stops when he stops crying and that’s all Echo cares about.
“Wake up!”
Crosshair groans, rolling away from Echo as a tiny, Omega-shaped bomb drives sharp little elbows and knees into their guts. “Omega…”
“Crosshair! Wrecker’s going to make waffles!”
“Omega, let them sleep,” Hunter sighs, scooping the kid up and throwing her over her shoulder, much to her delight. He looks down at the two of them, blinking slowly at Crosshair. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Echo says.
“Get karked,” Crosshair says, covering his head with a pillow. He kicks out with one leg and catches Hunter’s ankle with his foot, pulling just hard enough to make him stumble without knocking him over. Hunter and Omega laugh in harmony. “It’s too gods-damned early for this.”
“Ah, get up, asshole,” Hunter says, kicking him back in the ticklish spot under his ribs. “We’re reading that sniper novel Tech got you last Lifeday. You’ve got to do your Dantooinian accent.”