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“Kix! C’mon, vod, get your lazy ass up!” Rex exclaimed, winding up a loose hand towel and snapping it at his sleeping brother’s forearm.
Kix has been having a rather interesting dream about a bowling alley, a hive of bees, and commander Bly. It was rare anymore to sleep without nightmares, so the dream (no matter how unusual) was nice change of pace.
Unfortunately Rex, the ass, had to go and ruin it.
Kix bolted upright with a shout of pain, grabbing his arm where a bright red welt was developing.
“Rex, what the hell?” Kix demanded, spitting like an angry llama.
“Get your ass out of bed, vod. I’m not asking again,” Rex said, putting on his very best ‘former commander’ face.
Unfortunately, the medic, who outranked his brother even when Rex had been a commander, found no threat in the expression and merely looked unenthused. “Great. Even if you were to ask again, my answer would still be no. Glad you to know you’re saving us both the trouble. I’ll be going to bed now, thanks,” And with that, Kix turned over onto his side and pulled the blanket back up over his shoulder.
Kix, however, had no idea just how depraved and cruel and ruthless his brother really was—until, that is, the clone in question dumped a whole pitcher of ice water right on the medic’s head.
“Rex, what the fuck!” Kid shouted, sputtering, as he frantically scrambled to escape the wet sheets.
“Come on, dipshit. We’re child-proofing,” was all Rex said as he turned and left the room.
Kix stood absolutely frozen as he stared incredulously at his brother’s retreating from. “Excuse me, what?”
“We’re child-proofing,” Rex repeated, just as uselessly as the first time he’d said it. Much to Kix’s frustration, Rex didn’t even bother to stop walking and the medic was forced to jog to catch up.
“I heard the first time, thanks. Why?”
At the very least, Rex had the decency to stop walking and turn around. “Because we have children onboard the ship, dumbass,”
Kix’s patience was rapidly running out. He rolled his eyes egregiously and put his hands on his hips. “What? Noooo. Fuck. Children on the ship? Shit. I thought we sprayed for those,” he spat sarcastically. Now it was Rex’s turn to roll his eyes.
“Cut the crap, Kix. This is serious,” Rex ordered, his dark eyes shifting away uncomfortably and Kix realized, perhaps for the first time, that Rex... wasn’t okay.
Kix regarded his brother carefully and wrapped his arms around himself—the ship was cold and his threadbare fatigues (or ‘jim-jams’, as Cal called them) were soaked. “Why, did something happen?”
Rex didn’t respond. He merely turned away and continued walking, which was the only answer Kix needed.
“Tell me what happened,” he requested, his voice a touch softer than it had been. He couldn’t deny that, yes, he was a little worried. It was rare to see the unflappable Commander Rex looking so, well... flapped.
“Nothing, it’s fine,” Rex said gruffly and Kix, once again, rolled his eyes.
“I’m not moving from this spot until you tell me what’s up, vod,” Kix huffed. Rex had always been the sort who did better with orders rather than suggestions.
That seemed to snag Rex’s attention. He turned around, setting his jaw, and crossed his arms. “You’re wasting time,” he growled. “Come on, I want to get this place child-proofed before the kids wake up tomorrow,”
“Well, I’m going to keep wasting time until you tell me what happened,” Kix clipped in. Then, after seeing the ex-commander’s face fall, Kix’s heart twisted and his attitude dropped. “Look... they’re my Jedi too. If something happened, I want to know,” Kix urged and Rex sighed heavily.
“Ahsoka... almost shot herself,” he began, squeezing his eyes shut as if merely speaking the words was too painfully to endure. “I left my blaster on my desk and—Kix, don’t look at me like that, I thought she was napping! I didn’t know she’d woken up and snuck into our room!” Rex exclaimed, shrinking away as Kix’s indignation returned and bristled into rage.
“You left your blaster on your desk?! Are you kidding me?! Are you an idiot?! What if she hurt herself! What if she died!” he shouted and Rex twisted up in pain and frustration.
“Kix, I know, just shut up! You’re going to wake them up!” he spat.
Kix, still deeply unhappy with the situation, acquiesced and clamped his mouth shut.
“Look... I fucked up, and I know it,” Rex said , almost it voicelessly as they continued to walk down towards the main living area of the ship, where the child-proofing would begin. “I didn’t think she’d... Kix, she almost died. Hell, when I heard the blaster-fire and saw her on the floor, I thought she was dead,”
Just as it was dying out, a new flash of fury sparked inside the medic towards his idiot of an ori’vod. “The blaster went off?” he asked, forcing his voice to remain as quiet and level as was possible, for the sake of the three sleeping Jedi.
“It did,” Rex said, sounding utterly defeated as he hung his head in anguish. “She got up onto my desk. She must’ve held it wrong and it fired. It startled her and she fell off. Kix... Force, she could’ve... if she’d died, I don’t know how I would’ve lived with myself,” he mourned, wearing an expression that Kix had only ever seen once, after Umbara.
Finally, finally, the anger in Kix’s began to quell. Exhaling, he placed a hand gingerly on Rex’s shoulder. “Look, vod, you can’t about that. If you spend your life worrying about the ‘what ifs’, life will come and it will kill you,” he said softly. “Maybe she could’ve died, but she didn’t. Yeah, you fucked up big time, but you know better now. Now, all that’s left it to- fuck!” Kix cursed, so loudly that Rex nearly jumped a mile.
“What? What is it?” Rex demanded, and Kix merely gestured vaguely around the room, where little dried shreds of flimsi were liberally spread across the walls.
“Little shit got the walls in here, too!” he shout and, when Rex laughed, he punched his brother right in the shoulder. “You’re cleaning this up,” he growled.