Work Text:
Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum
I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal
"I learned something... something horrible. Fives knew...
Every Star-Destroyer is the same.
He's the one who figured it all out after Tup...
They're built the same, they're flown the same, they crash the same.
and it got him killed.
It didn't take much to find out what cruiser he'd been aboard.
-
After fifty-two rotations, what was once a wreck is now a temple to democracy, christened by the lives of millions.
Soaring arches of steel drip spears of ice, and once republic-red pillars of crossbeams are now scuffed grey, worn smooth from the grit of the sand. It's been well picked over; even some of the massive supporting columns have been removed and repurposed and Kix swears his heart froze in his throat when he saw the faded insignia on the cantina bar-top.
The crew of the Meson Martinet had explained the gap in his memory as best they could.
-
In a rare moment of vulnerability, Captain Rex had talked about how, in death, the eyes stay with you, always. They all have the same face, he said. The same body and the same home, but when you die, your eyes are your own. The eyes here are shrouded behind masks that hide that glimpse, that soul, that everyone said as machines they lacked.
But machines don't know mourning,
or desperation,
or a grief so deep that the dead sound lucky.
They are not machines, so once they break, they cannot be fixed, only replaced.
"I'll only be a few minutes."
Once upon a time, Kix would say that yes, they can. I have traction splints for that reason.
Once upon a time Jesse would snort from against his leg,
or kick him from his bunk during lights out,
or wrestle him to the mat in a heap of limbs and profanity.
-
Captain Ithano had said that the Jedi had turned. That the men, under order from the Emperor, did what had to be done, that they saw treachery. But Captain Ithano hadn't seen Jesse passing Commander Tano sweets under the table during chowtime, hadn't seen Captain Rex beating General Skywalker at arm-wrestling after Ringo Vinda, hadn't interrupted Commander Cody consoling a distraught Obi-Wan after The Second Battle of Geonosis,
hadn't seen Waxer and Boil,
Echo and Fives,
Kix and Jesse,
So once upon a time, Kix wouldn't be staring into the eyes of brothers surrounding
only to find them staring straight back
"Can't even scavenge while we wait."
The Republic has never buried it's property. Hands were already short, and bodies were heavy, so the ground that was claimed at the end of the day became a shrine to the ones that fell for it. Wrecks were the same, if not easier as the basilica was built around them.
"If it's closure he's after, I just hope he's quick with it."
The Republic has never buried it's property, so the forty-one, two meter long identical mounds are enough to freeze him where he stands. His heart has found that spot again.
Jesse died a long time ago, he knows that.
He's almost peaceful, here, half buried in the sand, ever watchful over the other forty, two-meter long mounds.
His knees hit the ground.
"This place is a graveyard."
His vision blurs.
Fifty-two rotations, and there he lay.
He can't catch his breath.
"Yes, it is."
Fifty-two rotations catches up.
He's shaking and gasping and the pain has been rising for fifty-two rotations and he's just been pushing it down down down because he knows, knows, that if he lets it up he'll never stop shaking and gasping and the pain will never stop rising but he's here and Jesse isn't, he's survived and Jesse didn't and only time will say when the pain can stop.
The eyes that find his are dry where his flow freely.
The eyes that find his have been dry for fifty-two rotations, have lived dry, have died dry, and are only sullied by the the face pressed nose-to-nose to his.
He's shaking and gasping and the heart in his throat has made a home.
Fives had known and then Kix had known and Kix is back in the firing line on Umbara but it's only Jesse this time,
bloodied and bare on his knees, and it's only Kix this time,
and no one has shouted fire! but still he shoots.
The eyes that find him are dry.
He doesn't know how long he stays there, screaming his name to a universe determined to erase it.
Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum
He doesn't know when Captain Ithano joins him, just knows that at some point he's on the ground next to him.
The eyes Captain Ithano finds are drying in the winter air, breaths creating clouds on the visor.
He's silent for a moment.
He's quiet when he speaks.
"The Delphidian Cluster is Mid Rim, but I never spent much time there."
Kix doesn't lift his gaze.
"I left as soon as I was able, made for the Inner."
This is the most he's heard him speak.
"Jakku, Correlia, Ord Mantell..."
He knows.
"We stopped on Coruscant once or twice to refuel, restock, and I recall a bar."
Kix looks up.
"Full of your men. Great drinks. Awful music."
He never calls them clones. Only men.
"'79's."
His heart still hasn't left his throat.
Captain Ithano nods.
"I had stepped outside for some air. One of your men was there already. Said he liked the mask. Asked about the respirator,"
Kix turns the gravestone over in his hands.
"and my thoughts on the war. Said 'we clones have mixed feelings.'"
"Because without it we wouldn't exist."
The eyes around him are screaming.
"Said he was quoting someone else, a better man. He introduced himself as Jesse, that he was there with a friend on leave."
They had just finished at Ringo Vinda.
Tup had shot, point-blank, Master Tiplar.
Fives had known, had tried to tell him in the 'fresher that same night,
eyes screaming listen, help me, listen
The eyes that find him now are blank and accusing and dead for fifty-two rotations.
"I was young. I was new, and he could tell. He asked me to do something."
The eyes that find him are dry.
"He asked me to open my eyes to the galaxy,
because the nightmare isn't over until everyone wakes up."