Chapter Text
Rex had been demerited, and that meant picking up trash around the lunch area instead of sitting with them or showing off his pull-up skills over on the blacktop.
“Woof,” Fives said as Rex wandered closer, in gloves and carrying a trash bag. “What’d you do?”
“Nothing,” Rex huffed, and caught the balled-up sandwich wrapper Fives tossed towards the bag. “I was just late, that’s all.”
“The great Valedictorian Rex,” Echo gasped in mock-surprise. “What could have happened!”
“Paz blew a fuse,” was Rex’s clipped reply, and most of the mirth around their lunch table dissipated. Rex, like Echo and Fives, didn’t live with his blood parents—father unknown and mother long buried—as a baby he’d been dropped off on their uncle Paz’s doorstep, to the man’s constant displeasure with four sons of his own already. Sometimes, when he couldn’t help it, Fives would wonder about what would have happened if Ninety-nine had moved back to Kamino a few years earlier—he undoubtedly would have taken Rex in, like he had unquestioningly agreed to take care of Echo and Fives when their mother wanted to give them up.
It said a lot that Echo and Fives called the man who raised them Dad instead of his name, Ninety-nine—but Rex never called Paz anything other than his name, often with more and more disdain.
Rex wandered off to pick up more trash, and later in the day Fives promised to pick him up after school from his detention and give him a lift. Though he’d only had the car for two months, the joy at being able to offer was still fresh and intoxicating.
Tech swore that it was a miracle that the old thing’s engine block hadn’t liquified from old age, yet. After two summers of working at the grocery store, buying the half-wreck the day he turned sixteen, Fives would pull the damn thing down the road in a harness if he had to. The first of all of them to get a car—there was a bit of pride that he knew made him insufferable, but it was also nice to be able to help Rex out.
First, he drove Echo and the batch back to their house, Wrecker up front, and Echo and the rest of the quadruplets arguing and half-sitting in each other’s laps in the back. Technically, Fives wasn’t supposed to be driving anyone under the age of twenty-five, but he knew where all the traffic cops in Kamino camped out, looking to hand out tickets.
“If you don’t settle down,” Fives chided, grinning into the rearview, “I’ll turn this car right around!”
A chorus of groans and one surly fuck off, Fives made him chuckle.
He dropped them all off, said hi to Ninety-nine, then motored back off to go pick up Rex. He was waiting outside of the school, and lifted a hand in greeting as Fives rolled to a stop in front of him on the curb.
“Hello, little boy,” Fives said through the window. “Want some candy?”
Rex rolled his eyes and slipped into the car. “You’re a freak.”
“And proud of it,” Fives replied, grinning.
He got them going on the road and thought over his tone very carefully. “Wanna go back to my place?” he asked, trying for casual, like it was just an offer for no reason. Not because of the way Rex had said Paz blew a fuse at lunch.
Rex let out a long, low sigh. “Nah,” he said, “I’ve got that paper to write, and the book is back at Paz’s.”
“You can run in and grab it,” Fives proposed. “Stay for dinner.”
Rex looked out of the window. “I dunno,” he said, running his hand through his short-shorn pale hair, and Fives let it drop.
His cousin was a year older, and while that sometimes seemed like ages and ages of experience, sometimes it felt like no time at all. After fumbling with silence for a minute, Fives cranked the radio up, beginning to warble the first few words of a song—and the radio cut out with a little screech of complaint.
“Your car’s a piece of shit, man,” Rex said, but he was grinning.
“At least it’s still running,” Fives replied lordily.
“Better knock on wood.”
Fives reached over to try and knock knuckles on Rex’s skull, and his cousin dodged, laughing. They chatted a little to fill the silence, and Fives was feeling himself relax—and then.
And then he turned the corner. Facts came to him blankly, plainly, without much feeling: there was his uncle Paz’s house. There was the front door, open. There was the front lawn, dying. There was what looked like a chair, broken. Books, tossed out, gutted and open on the yellow grass. Piles of clothes. Some in the gutter. Clogging. The car rolled forward, deathly silent, and as they came to a stop at the curb, a cardboard box came flying out of the open wound of the doorway—hitting the cement driveway and scattering it’s contents. What looked like a cassette player. Plastic shattering. Shoes. More books.
Fives didn’t remember putting the car in park, or cutting the engine. One second he was sitting in the driver’s seat, and the next second he was standing on the bleached-bone line of the curb, watching as Rex walked numbly across the lawn towards the front door—
Because those were Rex’s clothes. And Rex’s books. And his cassette player.
Rex stooped down and picked something up. He stood, holding his first place soccer trophy in two hands—the gold figurine at the top snapped off at the ankle from colliding with the front driveway.
With a grunt, an armful of papers and magazines were thrown from the doorway, scattering, Rex’s books, Rex’s magazines—and they were followed by the image of Paz Fett, staggering into the open doorway, his image coming to the edge of shadow like blood welling up through a bandage.
He was staggering. Four in the afternoon and he was already deep in it—but his eyes cleared, sharpened, as soon as he spotted Rex. Fett eyes. Familiar. All of Fives’s family had those same eyes, his brothers, Ninety-nine’s—but he’d never seen them dark with rage and hatred like that. It froze him, somewhere deep down in his core.
“There you are, you disrespectful waste of space!” Paz shouted at Rex. Staggered a few more steps into the light. Waving one thickly muscled arm. “Get your shit and get off of my property!”
Rex stood there. Holding his trophy.
“Did you hear me?!” Paz began to advance down the drive.
Fives was suddenly at Rex’s elbow. “Rex, come on,” he muttered, curling one hand around Rex’s bicep—feeling how tightly coiled he was.
At the sound of his voice, Paz’s eyes slid over onto Fives, suddenly aware of his presence. The hateful sneer of his face shifted to one of unadulterated disgust. Most of the time, Fives could force himself to ignore that his uncle was his biological father's identical twin--but in that moment, seeing the face of his father, who hadn't come to see him or his brothers in years, looking at him like that, made him feel like throwing up, breaking out in a sweat. “You little cocksucker—get the hell out of here! I’ll wring your neck!”
“Rex,” Fives heard himself say, begging, pulling on his arm. Paz didn’t stop. “Rex, come on.”
Once Paz was close enough that Fives could see the red veins in his eyes, Rex got ahold of himself and stumbled backwards with Fives, one step, two. He bent down, trying to grab some discarded clothes off of the grass, but his hands were full of his trophy and his fingers stiff and Fives didn’t know what he would do if Paz got close enough to grab Rex, he could feel his heartbeat against his sternum, in the roof of his mouth—
They backed up into the side of Fives’s car and without much higher thought involved Fives yanked open the door and shoved Rex inside.
“Yeah, you run, you fucking run!” Paz shouted.
Fives was in the driver’s seat, jerking the key in the ignition, praying that the engine turned over. It wheezed, heaved, then caught, as Paz slammed the side of his fist, hard , into the passenger’s side window, something in the window’s mechanism grinding as the impact shook it to the root.
“You worthless fucking stain, don’t you ever come back here again—”
The rest of Paz’s threat was lost as Fives hit the gas, tires screaming, and got them on the road, so fast it felt like he was leaving something vital in the air behind him, something he ought to go back and get, but Fives held onto the wheel and forced himself to breathe. He eased off of the gas. Heading towards home with no real thought. No sound in the car but his labored breathing.
Fives looked over and—and Rex, head bowed, body still, was still gripping tight to his broken soccer trophy. The base in one hand. The gold figurine in the other. White-knuckled with it. Fives kept swallowing and swallowing, but the knot in his throat didn’t go away.
Before he knew it, he was cutting the engine, parked by the long dirt drive that led up to Ninety-nine’s house. Ninety-nine. He was home, he would know what to do— Fives unclipped his seatbelt and hesitated.
Rex hadn’t moved. He sat there. Holding his trophy.
Fives tried to say his name, but nothing came out. His hands were shaking, kind of, stomach twisted, and after a moment, he opened the door. When Rex didn’t move, Fives mumbled something, I’ll be right back, hold on a second, then sprinted up the drive to the house. He needed—Rex needed—he needed his dad, and the feeling of helplessness that flooded him at the thought made him whimper.
“Dad!” he called out as soon as he was in the door.
“In the living room!”
Fives booked it through the warren of rooms towards the back. Ninety-nine, standing between his chair and a bookcase, looked over at his entrance with a smile on his mouth—and it immediately stuttered out.
“Fives? What is it—are you okay?”
“It’s—Rex—Paz—”
“Take a deep breath, son, okay, is Rex okay? Where is he?”
“He’s here,” Fives managed to eke out, eyes stinging, “I-I drove, and w-we went to Paz’s, and, and he had all of Rex’s stuff all over the lawn and he said—”
On and on Fives babbled. Ninety-nine watched his face, and as he talked, he watched his father’s face slowly harden, masking up a blank, narrow-eyed and keen look. When Fives ran out of words he just stood there, stupidly, and there was a moment of silence.
A cough. Up on the staircase, Crosshair and Echo were sitting. Watching.
Fives was almost blinded by the burning sensation that came over his face. All of his emotions were twisted up, churning—why was he embarrassed? Why couldn’t he swallow? He felt too small and too big all at once, tiny and inconsequential and blundering and oversized.
“Echo,” Ninety-nine said. Fives’s twin flinched, face as pallid as his color would let him go. “Call Cody’s work and tell him that Rex is here, that we’re taking care of him. Tell him to come here after work, not his father’s.”
Echo darted off down the stairs to get to the landline. Crosshair stayed standing there, on the stairs, still as a statue.
But Fives didn’t have the bandwidth to worry about that; Ninety-nine faced him again. “He’s in your car?” he asked, gently.
Wordless, Fives nodded. Ninety-nine nodded back, and when he went to the front door, Fives trailed after him, for lack of a better idea of anything to do. Ninety-nine didn’t send him off, and didn’t stop him, but Fives halted himself once on the porch. He could see Rex, still sitting in the passenger seat, far-off on the curb.
Fives stood awkwardly on the porch and watched Ninety-nine make his slow, laborious way to the car. Ninety-nine bent down, just a little, to look through the driver’s side door. Fives couldn’t see his face, or Rex’s, but Ninety-nine stood there, talking too quietly to be heard, for a long, long time.
Then, he pulled back, opened the door, and slipped inside the car, sitting in the driver’s seat. Rex’s head was a distant, blonde blur, through glass and shadowed by Ninety-nine’s profile. Swallowing thickly, Fives sat down on the steps of the porch.
The front screen creaked open, and Fives knew it was Echo before he spoke.
“I called Cody,” he reported. “He says he’s on his way.”
Fives grunted a monosyllable.
Echo shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Was it… bad?” he asked, like he already knew the answer.
“It wasn’t good,” Fives replied. His stomach twisted at the memory of Paz’s voice, just the pure threat of it. He had never—even dealing with bullies, he’d never stared down anything like that before. His own dad would never… Fives’s throat got tight again and he stood up.
In the car, Ninety-nine moved, bending over the center console, huddling with Rex’s bent head against his shoulder. Echo made a soft noise, and Fives couldn’t handle it. He went inside, coward that he was, and tried to find something to do.
Something turned out to be nothing. Ninety-nine coaxed Rex inside, hands empty, and took him upstairs to talk some more. Fives stayed downstairs, trying to throw some food around in the kitchen to make dinner, doing half a load of dishes just to keep his hands busy. He was numb to the rest of the house, so when a hand touched his shoulder, he almost jumped out of his skin.
“Easy,” Cody said, “easy, it’s me.” Cody was in his work clothes—washing dishes at the dive Mandalorian restaurant in the bad side of town. Saving up as much as he could. He bought the groceries in Paz’s house, kept himself and Rex fed now that his three older brothers had gone off into the service.
His cousin’s eyes were serious, looking down at Fives. His hand squeezed his shoulder. “You okay?” Cody asked.
No. “When did you get here?”
Cody dropped his hands. “A few minutes ago. I already talked to your dad.” Echo popped into the kitchen behind Cody, not looking to interrupt, just standing there quietly, watching.
Fives swallowed. “Sorry,” he croaked, face burning.
He couldn’t read Cody’s face. “You don’t need to be sorry, Fives.”
He had nothing to say to that.
Cody dropped his hand and wiped his palms off on his pants.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Cody told Fives, and as incongruous as that statement was, considering the circumstances, Fives felt an immediate sense of surety come over him—that was just how Cody worked. Sure, he was only a year older than Rex, but he was top of his class, on route to finish his senior year with his pick of officer appointments in any branch he wanted. He almost felt like a full adult in his own right, working a job, a car of his own that wasn’t a junker.
Fives managed a nod.
“I’m gonna go call Fox,” Cody said, and went past Fives to the back porch. Fives idly trailed after him, pulled on a kind of magnetic tide after his cousin. Call Fox, yeah, that was a good idea, yeah, everything would be fine—Fox was Cody’s oldest brother. In order it went Fox, Wolffe, Bly, then Cody—Wolffe and Bly were both currently active duty, Bly in the infantry and Wolffe in the airforce. Instead of going into the military, Fox had gone into the Senatorial Guard, the elite group of special forces that protected the senators in Coruscant. The only one of Cody’s brothers not currently overseas.
Fives distantly remembered Paz throwing a fit when Fox had made his choice. Thinking about his uncle made his stomach churn.
Cody went out into the backyard, pulling out his cellphone and dialing. Fives sat down on the porch. Echo sat down next with him, and wordlessly leaned so their shoulders were touching. The simple gesture had Fives’s throat closing up, and he leaned in even harder. His twin brother. He always just understood.
The phone seemed to ring for a very long time. Cody kept his composure, even as it just kept ringing. Fives was surprised it didn’t go to voicemail. Cody worked his jaw, then jolted.
“Fox!” he exclaimed, smiling. “There you are, I’m—”
His grin froze.
“No, wait, this is— this is an emergency,” he said quickly, bringing up his free hand to touch at the phone. Clinging to it. His eyes darted from side to side. “Yes, a ‘real’ emergency, what do you mean—”
The smile was gone. Confusion in its place.
“Fox, what’s going on? Are you okay? You don’t sound…”
He stood there. For thirty seconds. A minute.
“Fox,” Cody said, loudly, probably cutting him off, “Fox, okay, I’m sorry, I know you’re busy, but this is an emergency, okay? I wouldn’t have called you but—no, I’m fine, I’m…” A stormy frown passed over his face. “Rex is fine, too, by the way,” he added, tone testy.
Fives felt something awful churn in his stomach.
Cody turned so his back was to the porch. “It’s Dad,” he said, tone pitched low. “He went off the deep end today, okay, he kicked me and Rex out. We’re at Ninety-nine’s.”
A moment of silence.
“Yes, both of us!” Cody shouted, the sudden kick into rage like an electric jolt. Echo, at Fives’s side, swallowed some kind of fucking noise and stood up. When Fives didn’t get up, he stalled, just standing there, nervous in every inch. Fives wanted to give Cody some privacy. But he was frozen. Trapped between his own beating heart, and Cody’s dawning loss of hope.
“What was I supposed to do?! You want me to just stand there while he—that’s not—what the hell is wrong with you!”
Upstairs, a window closed. Forcibly.
“How can you say that?” Cody asked, voice tiny, and that was worse than the shouting. “Fox, what’s… what’s wrong, you don’t sound…”
Silence.
“Uh huh,” Cody said.
More silence.
“Uh huh,” Cody said.
“Fives,” Echo whispered. “Let’s go.”
Fives didn’t go.
“No,” Cody said, voice rough. He started to pace, little agitated steps. “No, I’m not doing that. Okay?! I’m not going back!” He paused, then made an awful, strangled-sounding laugh. “I know that! I’m not some stupid—I know, you don’t have to tell me that. That’s why I called, okay, I looked it up, and since you’re oldest…”
Fives wanted to stand up. Couldn’t. His mind was drifting somewhere outside of his body. One time, when he was nine, he’d hiked out a little bit up the ridge, the elevated spine of the little holler where the house was. At its peak, it overlooked a short offramp. Go right to get to Bora Viio. Go left to go towards Coruscant. He’d stood up there, watching the cars, sweating a little, feeling good, and oh so slowly—too fast to even comprehend—a car had tried to make the Coruscant turn at high speed and rolled, like a toy getting thrown, off into the trees and the shrub. It had all happened—so slowly.
And Fives had stood there. Unable to move, to look away.
Just like now.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Cody shouted into the phone, voice breaking.
“Fives.”
“He’s your brother, too! What the hell are you talking about, I’m not saying you have to—No, we could go to you, okay, I’ll get a job—”
Another momentary lift of his tone into something hopeful, only to come crashing back down.
“But you said— you said, if we ever needed— stop saying that! You promised him, too!”
The screen door creaked.
“Rex,” Echo murmured, a warning tone.
A bulky moment of silence. Cody stood there, listening, then exploded.
“No, screw you! Dad kicked us out and you’re worried about your job —”
There was a single, awful moment of silence. Fives had heard the phrase ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ before. He never realized how terrifyingly calm it would be, that waiting.
Then it dropped.
“Fuck you!” Cody screamed into the phone, his voice cracking painfully. “Fuck you, you are fucking dead to me!”
Cody took the phone away from his ear, threw it onto the rocky ground, and stomped on it, hard enough to send glass and plastic flying—and then he stomped on it again, and again, panting, until there was nothing left of his cell phone but particles.
Cody turned and paced away from the house, his hands linked behind his head.
Before Fives could move, or even breathe, Rex bounded past him, down the porch steps. He met Cody as he was halfway down the incline, circling around to cut him off. Cody’s back was to the house, Rex only half-visible over his shoulder.
Rex was gesturing, palms out, trying to say something—Fives couldn’t imagine. Cody only shook his head once, twice, then reached out and forcibly pulled Rex into an embrace.
Fives finally found it in him to stand, jerking up to his feet and swaying a bit.
Feeling numb, he followed Echo into the house, giving Cody and Rex as much privacy as they could. They both stood there, silent, for a second. Stupidly.
“I’m gonna go talk to the batch,” Echo said. Fives nodded but didn’t volunteer. Echo had the best hand for talking to Crosshair and Hunter especially. Fives chalked it up to Echo and Tech actually being pretty good friends at this point—he had the extra in.
Listless, feeling weird, Fives went out to the front porch and sat on the steps. He ought to go move his car, but instead he just sat there, looking at it, leaning heavily on his knees.
He sat out there for what felt like a long time. Shadows slowly lengthening.
The front door creaked open and closed behind him.
“There you are,” Ninety-nine said, and grunted, lowering himself down to sit on the steps with Fives. “How are you holding up?”
Getting asked that while two of his cousins were falling apart in the backyard—Fives made some kind of noise. “I’m okay,” he said, quickly, wincing at the obvious lie.
He knew that Ninety-nine would catch the lie, because he always did. He squirmed a little, keenly aware of his father’s presence at his elbow.
“What you saw was pretty upsetting,” Ninety-nine said, slowly, carefully. “It’s alright, Fives, if you’re not okay.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, voice cracking. “It’s not—Rex has it worse,” he said.
Ninety-nine reached out and carefully pushed a hand through his hair—the same gesture Ninety-nine always used when Fives was sick with a fever, or frantic, or waking up from a nightmare—and he whimpered, trying as best as he could to hold it back. The way Paz had yelled, the look in his eyes—Fives had never been on the receiving end of such raw hatred before. It sickened him. It made him lightheaded with relief, that he was sitting on the porch with his dad, and—and Ninety-nine would never speak like that to him, ever, and that felt so nice, but it also got guilt twisting up in his belly, and, and, and—
“Sorry,” Fives squeaked, ducking his head.
“Hey, hey, now,” Ninety-nine soothed, sliding closer. “You don’t have to apologize, Fives, it’s okay, you’re okay. Here. Here, son.” He tugged a little, and Fives easily melted, leaning so his head was on his dad’s shoulder, Ninety-nine’s arm wrapped around his back. “Tell me how you feel,” Ninety-nine gently prompted.
Fives swallowed. “I’m… I’m really sad,” he muttered, feeling pathetic and small. “For Rex. And Cody. But I’m—but I’m being weird, because I keep. I keep feeling good, too. That you’re my dad and not Paz or Jango or—” he sniffed. “It feels bad,” he finished.
“What’s bad about that?” Ninety-nine asked.
“Because… because I’m a bad friend. Because Rex getting hurt is just making me feel… grateful.” The last word broke as it came out of his mouth, and Fives bit down hard on traitorous little whimpering noises as they fought to break out of his chest. “I wish Rex…” he couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Shh, it’s alright,” Ninety-nine soothed, “I understand. You feel bad because you wish that you could have shared me with Rex.”
“Yes, but…” Fives could feel his resolve wavering. “B-but I don’t,” he said, feeling like the worst kind of scum. “‘C-cause it was good, just you and me’n Echo…” Force, what a piece of shit he was, already dreading having less of his dad’s attention than he did before the batch came to live with them, years ago, now.
“Sorry,” Fives choked out, “sorry…”
Ninety-nine shushed him again, softly, running his hand comfortingly through Fives’s hair. “It’s alright, son, it’s alright. There’s a lot of change happening all at once, you’re not a bad person for feeling this way.”
Fives squeaked out some kind of embarrassing little noise.
“I know you love Rex and Cody, and want them to be safe,” Ninety-nine continued, the words falling over Fives like a waterfall of peace. “I know that, you know that, and Rex and Cody both know that. But you have feelings, too, and this is a lot. Y-you’ve already been through a lot…”
“No, Dad,” Fives spoke up, cutting off the apology he knew was coming. “You don’t have to apologize, it’s—it’s good, and I trust you, and I want to help Rex and Cody. Just feels…” he frowned.
Ninety-nine tightened his arm around Fives’s shoulder. “Feels like you need a hug from your dad, hm?” he asked.
Fives hiccuped a little laugh, and leaned in a little closer. “Yeah.”
Laughing a little himself, Ninety-nine brought his other arm up and gave him a good squeeze, rocking side to side a little, like he always did when Fives was a little kid and needed a band-aid on a scrape or cut.
“Ah, my boy,” he sighed, leaning his cheek on the top of Fives’s head. “Seems like just yesterday you were two years old, both front teeth missing…”
“Dad,” Fives groaned.
Ninety-nine chuckled and leaned back, all indulgent smiles and—and it broke Fives’s heart that Rex probably never had anyone look at him the way his dad was looking at him right now.
Fives swallowed. “I’m really glad,” he said, which was too small a word to describe how he felt about his dad, “that you’re my dad. That you’re such a good person. I’m really lucky. I just wish…” that he was a better son. That he was easier to deal with. That he wouldn’t ever feel jealous. He ducked his chin, face burning.
He could hear the smile in Ninety-nine’s voice as he spoke, reaching up one work-worn hand to rub some wetness off of his cheeks that Fives couldn’t remember letting slip. “I’m the lucky one,” he said, voice quiet with conviction. “Having a son like you, Fives. You make me so proud, and I love you so much.”
Fives swallowed thickly, but managed a brief smile.
With his hand on the back of Fives’s neck, Ninety-nine reeled him in, planting a kiss on his forehead. “There. You good?”
“I’m good,” Fives said, because he was.
“Alright.” Ninety-nine ruffled his hair, then stood, grunting and leaning his weight on his knees. “I’m going to go talk to Cody and Rex, okay?”
“Okay.”
Fives stayed sitting there on the front porch as Ninety-nine lumbered back inside. He didn’t stay sitting for long, scrubbing at his face with the neck of his t-shirt before standing and going over to his car. He liked to park along the side of the house so if anyone tried to mess with it it’d be close enough to hear from the windows.
He got to his car and—stopped.
Rex had left the pieces of his broken trophy behind. On the passenger seat. Swallowing, Fives reached out and picked them up. Rex was the youngest guy on the varsity soccer team—fought for his place, earned his place, and played in the championship game’s final five minutes with a broken elbow, helping to clinch the win.
Fives and Cody and Ninety-nine and all of them had gone to the game.
Paz hadn’t.
Feeling lightheaded, Fives came to a conclusion with himself and clutched the trophy pieces to his chest, booking it back into the house. He could hear Ninety-nine murmuring quietly to someone in the dining room, and Fives tried to tip-toe up the stairs.
Once on the second floor, he immediately ran into Echo and Hunter, conferring in the hallway between the two rooms that they shared, his and Echo’s on the left, Hunter and the quadruplets to the right.
“Hey,” Echo said to Fives, “there you are. We’re trying to figure out the bed situation.”
“Me and Cross can double up,” Hunter said, but grimly. Crosshair was not present; for all of their sakes, Fives hoped that it was because he was getting the extra blankets, and not because he was pushing back against more people moving into the house. As much as Fives might agree with the sentiment in a shameful part of his brain, he didn’t want this to be any harder for anyone.
“Wreck says he can sleep on the floor,” Hunter continued, “but Tech had this idea about the mattresses…”
“I’m looking for Tech, actually. Where’d he stash his repair kit?”
“Think it’s in the laundry room. Why…?”
Fives ran back down the stairs.
He located Tech’s bag of goodies easily enough, and got to work right there on top of the washing machine. Because he knew Tech was really sensitive about this stuff, Fives made damn sure that the little tube of glue went back in the precise same place he’d taken it from.
Back upstairs he went with his prize.
“No,” Tech was saying lordily from inside Fives and Echo’s room, “you put them width -ways, so no one will fall between the mattresses.”
Fives ducked his head in. It looked like the top-level mattresses from the batch’s bunk beds were spread out on the ground, and he understood Tech’s reasoning—their legs might not have any padding, but they could fit four people across two mattresses if they lined them up horizontally on what little floor space remained.
“Nice job,” Fives told Tech. His little brother brightened under the praise, and started to babble on about his reasoning. Since no one could double with Wrecker on a single twin-sized mattress, that meant that he’d be sharing with Rex and Cody, and Tech would take his bed, and Crosshair and Hunter could double or someone could sleep on the couch…
Fives tucked the trophy down on the foot of his bed, making like he was folding blankets so it wouldn’t get noticed. He felt weird showing it off with Tech and Echo so close at hand.
For the better part of an hour, they all stayed upstairs, getting things ready by silent, mutual agreement, in both bedrooms. Getting the spare sheets on the mattresses, getting spare toothbrushes sorted—Fives went to go clear up some space in the chest of drawers he and Echo both shared, only to stare at empty wood and remember the sight of Rex’s clothes, crumpled up and clogging the gutter in front of Paz’s house.
He hurriedly picked out some shirts he thought would fit Rex and put them all together in that drawer, then closed it with force. After another moment’s hesitation, Five got the fixed trophy out and placed it, carefully, on the top of the dresser, where the gold caught the light.
There was no fanfare when Rex and Cody came upstairs. Surprisingly, Cody went to talk to the batch first, leaving Rex to stand like a statue in the doorway of Echo and Fives’s room.
“It was Tech’s idea,” Echo gave credit for the beds. “And it’ll be easy to get two more. Uh, soon. This is just for the weekend.”
Rex looked at the mattresses and nodded. He kept opening and closing his hands, at his sides. He walked in, looking at nothing, and Echo gave Fives a silent look that carried far too much. This was affecting all of them, but Fives had been there . He understood the implication when Echo slipped out of the room behind Rex. Letting them have the privacy to talk, like they would undoubtedly need to do at some point.
“Uh, I grabbed some clothes I thought you’d like,” Fives said.
Rex nodded, shot him a bruised glance, looked towards the dresser—and froze.
And Fives suddenly felt really bad and embarrassed about the whole thing.
“Uh,” he said, cleverly. He tried to keep a tight lid on the feeling and not squirm so much. “I, uh, you know… it-it wasn’t that broken, you know, so I thought I’d just.”
He wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.
“Y-you worked really hard, and I know you, uh. That it’s important to you. So I, uh… fixed it.”
Rex stood there and stared at the trophy. You could kind of see where the break had happened, the glue not quite clear. A gray-white scar. Fives squirmed. Rex had left the stupid thing behind, of course he didn’t want to see it—what kind of fucking reminder was it, of all the stuff that had happened to him today, of all the stuff he lost, Fives was such an idiot…
“Sorry,” Fives said, lamely.
Rex turned—his eyes were misty, but his cheeks were dry as he rubbed one hand across his mouth. Eyebrows drawn together.
“What’re you sorry for?” Rex asked, and he sounded so honestly confused.
That was a good fucking question.
“I dunno,” Fives admitted, frowning. “I-I just… I dunno.” It sounded so childish to say. He could feel his face burning, and he dropped his eyes to the tips of Rex’s shoes. Hand-me-downs. Wolffe had doodled in sharpie all over them, and they were frayed. “I just… wanted to do something nice for you,” Fives managed to mumble.
Okay, time to abort mission.
“Sorry,” he said again, and turned to go—
Rex stepped forward and hugged him. When Fives shuddered, choking up a little, Rex just hugged him harder. The moment elongated—they’d hugged before, obviously, they were cousins and friends, but this was different from the one-armed hugs, bear-tackles, and other brief gestures of affection they’d shared before. This lingered, but there wasn’t any awkwardness to it like Fives might have expected. It felt nice.
“Hey,” Fives muttered into Rex’s shoulder, circling his arms around his ribs, “who’s comforting who, here?”
He felt Rex’s laugh more than he heard it.
“Thanks,” Rex rasped, and Fives squeezed his eyes shut.
“Don’t mention it,” he replied. “I… I mean, you don’t have to… I don’t know what I’m doing, man, I just wanted to help. I know it’s not really —”
Rex cut him off. “You don’t have to… You’re good,” he said, only sounding a little awkward about it. “You’re good. Just… you, you help.”
Fives winced. “Gonna have to help me out, Rex’ika.”
That made Rex laugh again, louder this time, so Fives could hear it. Rex loosened his hold and pushed Fives back. What he saw on Rex’s face cheered him—it looked like Rex, the Rex he knew, grinning a little, eyes only kind of serious.
“It’s not the fixed trophy that’s helping,” Rex said, oh so simply. “It’s that you fixed the trophy. It’s… it’s you.” He licked his lips, looking unsure for all the conviction in his tone. “Yeah?”
Fives felt lightheaded. “Yeah,” he echoed back. He leaned forward and Rex hugged him again. Fives made sure to squeeze extra hard, his arms wrapped around Rex’s ribcage.
Then, because he had to, he hauled all of his weight backwards, trying to yank Rex off of his feet. Laughing, Rex hunched over his shoulders, trying to get him in a wrestling grip—they tumbled into the hallway, barely missing Crosshair.
“Hey!” he snapped, “watch it!”
“Cross!” Fives shouted under Rex’s arm. “Help!”
A flash in Crosshair’s eyes, and sure, going for the brother who played dirty was a cheap shot, but in Fives’s defense, Crosshair was standing right there. He lunged into the fray, and from Rex’s disgusted noise, had licked his fingers and was going for the ear.
“Cody!” Rex laughed, retreating with Fives in his grip down the hallway under the onslaught. “Cody!”
Cody appeared in the doorway to the batch’s room, Hunter at his elbow.
“Loser does the dishes!” Fives howled, just to get as many bodies in the fray as possible. “Loser does the dishes!”
“Oh no you don’t—” Cody, laughing, went for Crosshair, but in a flash, Hunter intercepted him, a textbook headlock—despite how his arms flailed, Cody looked impressed.
Before long, Wrecker was in the mix, laughing and swinging a pillow around, Tech doing his best to duck and dodge and find an in—from one room to the next, stumbling over the pile of mattresses and collapsing into a big writhing pile.
Fives, with Wrecker’s elbow in his belly, Rex’s arm trapped under his head, and someone making his leg go numb, sitting on his calf—well. Any worry he had about sharing his dad, sharing his home, with anyone else, disappeared. He’d been worried that trying to plunge deeper depths of affection might come up scraping the bottom of the barrel, all gone dry.
But. Everything was coming up an endless. Just on and on and on—not like he was falling, but like him and everything else was slowly but surely rising.