Chapter Text
Babyface tried to control his breathing, trying to ground himself for his brothers— Pixel was pacing, flapping his hand vigorously as he did so. He wasn't the only one, obviously, to do so, so he redirected himself to Chatty. If Pixel got more distressed a different brother would notice.
“Chatty,” he sighed to the rapid-fire signing clone in front of him, “too fast. Can you slow down for me?”
Chatty made an annoyed mmmf! as he continued to bounce on his toes, shook out his hands, and restarted. “Wrong,” he signed. “Wrong, wrong wrong. Not leaving here, can’t. Grew up here. Cremated 99 here. Republic needs to let us stay!”
“I know, I’m listening,” it would be pointless to try and reason while his brother was this distressed. “You need me to lay on you, or is talking helping enough?”
He watched as Chatty took a prolonged minute to think the choices over, chewing his lip. “...need the lay,” he eventually signed.
And so he did. He brought Chatty to his own bunk, watched as his brother kicked off his shoes and laid down, and copied him—only he laid upon Chatty.
It's funny, in a weird nostalgic way. He’s still smaller than Chatty, just like the first time they figured this out, despite being a good year older. Thirteen and a half and yet he looked like, at maximum, a year seven. Anyway. It had been years ago, Chatty had only been with him and 99 for what, a week? Two weeks? He wasn’t adjusting well. Teetering far too close to having an outburst outside of the barracks. Repeating the same thing again and again (back when he used to talk) of not the right schedule! Not the right schedule! Not the right schedule! At the time he was freaking out over the youngling who used his bed during the daytime hadn’t made it correctly, practically sobbing.
Babyface sat in his lap, better wipe the tears away or something stupid like that, and it just. Worked. Somehow. And now it had morphed into what was currently happening— him on top of his brother, carefully listening to his breath evening out to a sleep-like cadence. Some form of magic.
“Chatty okay?” asked Pixel, apparently finished with his own pacing and sitting beside the bunk.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine. What about you? You don’t seem to be taking the news well either.”
“I didn’t think we’d leave Kamino.”
“But you wanted to, right? Or did I imagine all those rants? The ones about wanting to see the planets our brothers fought on to get a better understanding of the Republic winning or losing battles?”
“No, I said those,” he shrugged. “I just thought it would be different. Nobody has a plan. What if they separate us? Not just the three of us, but the others, too? Put us on all different planets and we can’t see each other or talk because they forgot to give us comms.”
“Well, I guess we’d just have to annoy Cody and Tech enough to get everyone a comm.”
“That's not what I meant…”
“Hey,” Babyface put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, “17 was 99’s second in command for a reason. Whatever commander Cody assigns to take care of us all, they’ll be listening to 17. I trust 17, so far he’s been doing great.”
“I trust 17… just…”
“Just what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’re just an anxious fuck, Pixel.”
“I do not appreciate that language.”
“But do you agree?”
“.... yes,” he sighed, letting his head rest on the bunk’s side. “You are not wrong, just vulgar.”
Babyface reached over, combing his hands through his younger brother’s hair. “Remember what 99 said. We just have to make it through today, that's all. No more than that. The military types like structure more than we do and they’ll listen to 17 since he’s the head of us. And they’ll listen to Mems, since he’s in charge of all the younglings. If the commander doesn’t listen, I’ll make them. I’ll drag in Cody and force 99.”
“Thank you,” Pixel whispered, and closed his eyes.