Work Text:
The smallest of Coruscant’s moons looks almost like a miniature version of the planet it rotates around, light polluting its surface and stretching in a net around the small sphere.
Even during daytime, one can make out the faint glow of it in the blue sky. Now it is dark night, Comet is sitting on the landing platform of the clone bunks between the Jedi Temple and the Senate Buildings where the battalions usually stay for shore leave.
He can’t sleep. Virtually, none of them have been sleeping well since the whole Malevolence disaster. He wasn’t in the Abregado System with the rest of the Wolf Pack due to a half-exploded broken leg that demanded a trip to Kamino, but the pain doesn’t linger any less deep.
On one hand, he is glad he wasn’t there. He is still alive and, rationally thinking, there is nothing he could have done to help. It is very likely that he would have simply died alongside the rest of his pack. This way, he gets to live.
On the other hand,… his pack is dead. Almost everyone he ever knew is dead. All of his batchmates are dead, all nine of them. He was lucky that he grew up with all of them and now they are gone, somewhere in the cold of open space or crammed together in a defect escape pod, waiting for the clankers to get them. He has to live.
Steps approach from behind, dragging a little, tired and while it is far more likely that it is one of the guys from the Guard, he knows these steps a little too well.
Sinker sinks down next to him and crosses his legs.
“Holding up?” His brother asks. He’s wearing the lower half of the armour that he brought back from Abregado. They’ll pick a new colour sometime soon, once the puppies from Kamino arrive and earn their stripes. Run out has the time of the burgundy Wolf Pack.
Comet nods. “Yeah. You?”
“Boost and Fox finally dragged Wolffe to sleep,” Sinker answers. There is humour in his voice, although they have worried about their commander a lot over the last few days. Sinker’s eyes don’t smile.
“Took both of them to keep him down?” Comet huffs and turns his head away.
“Something like that.”
When they returned to Triple Zero, Fox had enlisted a few of his closer brothers from the Corries to join the Wolf Pack in their almost entirely unoccupied bunk room.
It is a small comfort. At least it has chased away the dead silence in the corridors and filled the nights with the quiet life of slow, regular breathing. Thorn’s snores aren’t quite loud enough to resemble the noises Growl used to make. It doesn’t matter because Comet rather wanders the halls than sleep and he should really stop thinking about his dead brothers unless he wants to make a fool of himself in front of Sinker.
Silence hangs between them for a few moments.
“Can’t believe someone actually came to save us,” Sinker mumbles, almost too low for Comet to understand if he didn’t know the exact words, hadn’t heard them quite a lot of times before and even more so after Abregado.
“Maker, will you shut up,” Comet can’t help but hiss.
“It’s true. You know it.” He hates that low tone. Sinker is supposed to bicker and shout and howl with them. Not carry this kind of bitterness in his voice. It makes heat rise to Comet’s head.
Rationally, he knows that without the General, there in the pod with his brothers, it is… very possible that no one would have come to get them. It is not like the Republic notoriously leaves their troopers behind but in a battle against a weapon like that, with their forces stretched thin to begin with and no real prospect of survivors…
His muscles tighten up. He swallows down some unpleasant emotions and instead hauls himself at Sinker.
Sinker looks more than surprised and is slow to react, so Comet quickly gains the upper hand in their fight and manages to pin his brother face down on the concrete.
Usually, when they wrestle for fun, Comet got little on Sinker but with ten pounds more armour on him and the rather unfair advantage that the latter crawled out of an escape pod half dead just a few rotations ago, he manages to hold him down.
“Stay down and listen up, you di’kut,” he growls.
Sinker writhes under him and tries to get a dirty kick to his back but Comet is quick enough to dodge and block his thighs with his other leg.
“Let me go, kark— Comet, you ass!” Sinker hisses back but tones down his resistance so it does little more than protect his ego.
“I said stay down! Stay down—,” Comet is struggling for words. His blood is boiling with anger, and he really doesn’t want to hurt Sinker, but he digs his fingers into his wrists just a little too tight.
“We got the best Jetii you could possibly want to serve under and all you— all you do is try to convince him to throw our lives away. What is wrong with you?!”
Sinker goes still under him and for a moment, both of them breath heavily without sharing any more words.
Finally, Sinker taps out and Comet does let him go, even though there is a high chance he will get his shebs kicked in return or worse.
Sinker turns to look at him, but he doesn’t jump at Comet, doesn’t even throw a punch at him, actually. He looks guilty.
“Comet…”
“Don’t— just, just— don’t.” Comet turns away and wishes for his bucket. Suddenly he feels uncomfortable with his expression so open on display. “All we ever wanted is to be treated like people.”
“The general knows,” Sinker mutters and sits down close enough to him to nudge their shoulders together. “He cares. Doesn’t matter if I get it or not.”
Comet is still angry but the prospect of fighting with anyone from his pack right now is unbearable. Instead, he forces himself to nudge Sinker back in an attempt of making peace.
They won’t come to an agreement today or on any day in the future. He leans heavily against his brother and lets his eyes fall shut. The cool air bristles against his hot face.
Sinker flicks his forehead. “I demand a fair rematch, tomorrow.”
Comet huffs but nods lightly. “I’ll kick your shebs. Make Boost tease you mercilessly about it, forever.”
“Sure, vod’ika. Of course you will.”