#helix the clone medic

[themonopolyhat]

shoulder the sky: the star (a halloween giftfic)

a few weeks ago a creepy-ass phrase popped into my head, and it turned into this: almost 1500 words of holiday horror for my friend @shootingstarpilot. a trick or a treat? you decide!

warnings for body horror, disturbing imagery, and very little actual plot or explanation. featuring @swmoddy's helix the clone medic and pilot's own needle and stitch, aka the chokehold trio <333

the star:

By the time they realize what's happened, the star has already taken Obi-Wan whole and seared its speech into Helix's mouth.

They fail to stop Needle. He casually breaks his bones and ducks into the observation lounge, laughing gaily all the while.

They stop Stitch ten feet from the door. He burns and bleeds and speaks something else's words, all the same.

They let him go.

oOoOo

Cody declares the area off-limits. The men on watch are drawn back to touchpoints along the corridors.

When they begin to bleed, he evacuates the entire section.

Then the sections fore and aft. The decks above and below.

By the time the star has finished, it's carved the Negotiator into thirds—an untouched aft wedge, a safe-enough forward wedge, and a giant gaping maw of madness in the middle.

None of them know why the ship hasn't depressurized and blown them all into the void.

No one wants to ask out loud, in case the star hasn't noticed the oversight.

oOoOo

“We don't think it's really a star,” says Particle after a consult with navigation, astrometrics, astrophysics, and stellar cartography. “It's not on any of the maps, and it's not behaving like a star.”

Waxer snorts. “No shit.”

Particle has the good grace to grimace. “I meant the sensor readings are wrong. It's not reading like a normal star on the sensors.”

“What is it, then?” Cody asks.

Particle glances at Wave, who tugs at her braids anxiously where they hang over her softshell grey shoulder. “Best guess is it's either a creature that looks like a star, or it's a creature that's hijacked a star.”

oOoOo

They keep callling it the star.

That's what it looks like, hanging massive and brilliant and too close off the port bow.

oOoOo

Cody comes to the edge of the star's influence, where the terrible warping of the bulkheads and deck plates tapers.

Eight days have passed since they were yanked out of their hyperlane, all screaming alarms and whining intertial dampeners.

Seven days have passed since anyone sane last saw the general.

“What are you?” Cody asks again, a cold sweat prickling at his brow and down his back. He refuses to glance away. “Is Needle still alive?”

“It has to eat,” the thing that isn't Needle slurs cheerfully with his torn-open grin, crowded with too many teeth that are not his own. His tongue is blackened, swollen, dragging dry over blistered lips. “Has to eat.”

(He comes most often to the boundary. Sometimes it's Stitch, who is calmer and bleeds more.

They haven't seen Helix since he went in after Obi-Wan.)

“What has to eat?” Cody asks him.

“To eat,” Needle bubbles. “It has to eat.”

Cody looks at their second most senior medic. Tries not to inhale the reek of burning metal, burning flesh. Something is sizzling faintly. “You don't need us,” he persists. “Let this ship go. Let my men and our general go.”

Needle's head tilts. Uncomprehending. His left clavicle juts from his skin. The pieces are tugged outward like twisted red saplings sprouting from his torn blacks. “Eat, eat,” he insists, chuckling. “It needs to eat.”

oOoOo

They all say the same things, when questioned. Needle laughs and his breath plucks the strings of his cheeks where they slide over the teeth. Stitch quietly bleeds in place.

They don't seem to understand most of what Cody asks (demands, shouts, pleads).

Eat, they say. Eat.

It needs to eat.

All things must eat.

Helix comes only once. He carries his convulsing heart in a clear specimen bag. Pulls his charred, blood-cracked lips apart and rattles the words loose like bones tumbling down a well—

We must eat.

oOoOo

They're all nearly blinded when the light floods across the bridge. Shouts of pain and surprise ripple through the pits, adding to the chaos.

“Close the shutters!” Cody barks out. He nearly loses his footing when the ship gives another nauseating heave. His eyes are screwed shut, fragile lids helpless against the onslaught. “Ops, status?”

“Stand by, sir!” Teeter chokes out.

Obi-Wan sounds as pained as everyone else, somewhere off to Cody's left. “Dartboard, tell me we're not flying directly into a star—?”

“Sensors are recalibrating and I can barely see the readout,” Dartboard replies, sniffling, “but... I don't think so. It's off to port. Close.”

The shutters drop. The bridge crew as a whole blinks tears out of their eyes, coughing through smoke. Negotiator rolls and shakes and protests all through her beams.

Ops reports some level of damage on every deck, but nothing they can't repair within twelve hours. The engines are down. The shields and thrusters are operable.

They won't fall into the star, at least.

oOoOo

Stitch's new eyes are swollen and discolored, pushing out through delicate neck skin like tumors with scabbed, lashless lids. Cody counts four of them this time.

“To eat,” Stitch murmurs, almost apologetically. “All things must eat. It has to eat.”

“Where is Obi-Wan?” Cody asks.

“It has to eat,” Stitch answers.

“I want to see him.”

“It has to eat.”

“Let me see Obi-Wan.”

Stitch blinks with all six eyes out of sync. The new ones roll about, uncoordinated. “To eat,” he repeats.

He turns to go, leaving dark blood pattering in his wake. His scrubs and blacks are ripped halfway down his back, and he's split open neatly along his spine. Bone and meat glisten in the strange light.

(We must eat, Helix said.

So far the star hasn't eaten anyone except the medics. And maybe Obi-Wan, somewhere in the dark tangle amidships. Every effort to get sensors or cams working through the star's influence has ended in failure.)

oOoOo

Cody goes to the boundary twice a day. A medic comes to meet him every time.

Needle gains more and more teeth, peels his burned face open ever more deeply, giggle-drools pink streaks and charcoal flakes.

Stitch leaves faint blood-steps behind him and speaks through a mouth seared raw, just like the rest. On the fifth day his spine is open to the air. His new eyes come in the day after.

Helix visits the morning of the ninth day. He does not blink; his eyelids have been neatly sliced away. His heart thuds dutifully in its bag at his side. Grotesque veins slither from the pulp of it up into Helix's sleeve.

“We must eat,” he says. His blackened lips weep sorely for the disturbance.

Cody tries everything he can think of to get through to their senior medic. Helix loves Obi-Wan. He loves Stitch and Needle. Surely if he's in there somewhere, he will help Cody save them.

Helix just looks at him, listing vaguely to one side. The smell of burned, rotting flesh is stronger than ever. His heart twitches in its bag.

He leaves only a few flecks of mouth-char when he finally shuffles away.

oOoOo

On the tenth day, Cody opens his eyes to Waxer's voice, frantic and hushed at his bedside.

It's gone, he's saying, it's gone, the star's gone, the ship's back to normal, we've got to—

They run.

oOoOo

The lounge door is just as it should be, lighting and deck plates and bulkheads pristine and normal.

Cody breathes steadily through his nose. He thinks he's imagining the scent of roasted meat at this point—it's permeated him somehow, gotten into his skin and brain a little deeper every time he met one of their mangled medics at the boundary. No one else seems to smell anything unusual.

They key the door open. Step inside, weapons ready. The junior medics hover just behind with their kits just as ready.

oOoOo

They're huddled in the center of the lounge. A pile of sprawled limbs that rips Cody's heart into his throat for a split second of cold, numbing horror.

(Nothing but bloodied, mangled flesh, melted together into one horrific mass—

What if it moves, what if they're alive like that—)

He blinks and the vision fades.

There's nothing burned. Nothing broken or twisted.

Obi-Wan looks like he fell asleep the way he does sometimes after a difficult meditation, curled up loosely on the deck with his head pillowed on his arm. His boots are tumbled a little ways away, like he kicked them off at some point.

The medics are curled up with him, clutching his cloak and each other tightly. No scorched flesh, no jutting bones or bagged hearts.

Obi-Wan's hand rests on Helix's chest. Needle drools a little against Helix's shoulder, with cheeks and lips now soft and clean and whole. Stitch is flopped over them, his back and throat visibly mended, unmarked.

They're asleep, the junior medics will confirm within moments. All vitals are normal. No sign of trauma.

oOoOo

“It had to eat,” Obi-Wan murmurs, frowning in thought, and Cody shudders before he can stop himself.

“Please,” he manages. “Please—don't say that.”

[themonopolyhat]

HENLO IT HAS OMG <3333

mer au is by default a mimic lives au, so have a two for one special!

promises, promises:

Of all their batch, Zygo and Ace understand Helix the best. At least when it comes to this.

“Why,” Mimic begs twice, three, ten times, now a whisper, now a demand. He holds onto the word for the length of the conversation. There's no answer that will satisfy.

Why. Why. Why why why why—

Because, Helix could say, this war is why I was decanted. Why any of them were decanted.

Because, Helix could say, they need me. The men he has saved. The men he will save. The men he trains, who will save more still.

Because, Helix could say, I need it. The fleet, that vast machinery of purpose and skill. The smell of salt and metal and disinfectant. The joy of standing between all they love and the enemy that's loomed large since Gen Two came of age.

He has said all of these things and more besides, every time he's shipped out. This will be his third tour at sea and he still hasn't figured out how to convince his little brother.

Maybe it's an impossible task.

Instead, he gives Mimic what he needs. He recites a few phrases from their previous conversations, sees how they fit. And then he tells stories. Mimic needs words for anger, frustration, and fear. For love and admiration. For grief.

“Lose you, Helix,” Mimic puts together at one point, fingers twisting anxiously. His eyes are damp but he hasn't cried this time. “Afraid. I'm afraid. Lose you.”

Helix can't promise he won't.

“I hear you,” he says simply. “I hear what you're saying. I promise I'll do my best to come back.”

“Promise to come back.”

“I promise I'll do my best. My best is very good, you know.”

Mimic's face does something complicated, like he's trying to laugh and roll his eyes and grimace all at the same time. “You,” he says severely, poking Helix's chest. “The best. Do the best. Come back.”

Helix gently flicks his nose, blows his curly bangs out of place. “Sir, yes sir.”

His flight leaves in seven hours.

(At least when the Negotiator shudders and founders and vomits her survivors onto the waves, Helix hasn't made any promises he can't keep.)

my dude, i am bursting with the desire to write but my wips are not cooperating. i beg you to give me a PROMPT. hanahaki au, doll au, dinobabies au, vampire boys au, possessed!helix au, mer au, anything we've bleebled about in the chat and i'll churn out an idfic for you <3

HELLO FRIEND IT'S BEEN A WHILE-

oh, you do spoil me. hmmm. you know, i'm feeling particularly greedy tonight- i would KILL for some more mer au, but also, just to provide some choice... dare i ask for your take on a mimic lives au?

(if you want a bit more- there's no pressure, but a particular version has been floating around in my head. one where rumors fly fast in the tunnels under kamino. mimic knows what it's like to have to borrow, so he doesn't judge when he hears from 99 about a recon who stole a name. but some of the others- 4182, for one- are not... quite as understanding-)

[perseus-jackass]

Me when I remember Helix the 212th’s medic isn’t actually a real character, he’s someone’s OC that the fandom collectively adopted.

[deserthusbands]

cody: you're sick.

obi-wan, laying pathetically on the bed: no.

cody: you can't deny it this time.

obi-wan: mmf, yes i can.

cody: i will get helix.

obi-wan: no. :(

cody: you're sick.

obi-wan: i am not sick.

cody: i will take you myself—

[obes-kenobes-benos]

Helix: You know you can die from that, right? Cody: smoking a cigarette That’s the point. Obi-Wan: drinking alcohol We’re trying to speed this up. Wooley: Eating raw cookie dough and nodding

[merlyn-bane]

"Obi-Wan Kenobi has a trash immune system and is allergic to everything/sick all the time"

False! This is a lie fabricated by Captain Helix the clone medic (and enthusiastically endorsed by Chief Healer Che) as a convenient excuse to get people to leave his fuckin' general alone for five minutes sometimes. Obi-Wan is touched, except for that no-one will let him have nuts or seafood at parties anymore and the Chancellor keeps trying to feed him shrimp and pistachios for some reason.

[cc-tens]

Listennn, I don't care what anyone says, medic characters in media are the fucking best. The battle between managing their emotions and distancing themselves a healthy degree from loss but also their love and devotion driving them to push through and try and do their best to save others, only to be destroyed when they cannot. How they try and cope with the situation they're put in - some by remaining quiet and distant, others trying to use jokes and levity to mask the pain. But GOD I love when a character who heals and saves others eventually comes to bend and breaks under the enormous pressure they're under and now other's have to find a way to save them. The people they've dedicated their lives to now trying desperately to hold tight and sooth the one who soothes them, to keep them whole and together not only due to that person being invaluable for what they do but also because everyone's come to love them for who they are as well.

[jedi-enthusiast]

Coruscant:

Fox, bone-tired and slightly delirious: Sorry I missed my appointment. I've just been losing a lot of time lately, it's hard keeping the days straight.

Grim, eyebrow twitching: ...give me like five minutes.

-----

Somewhere else in the galaxy:

*Epi's comm beeps*

Epi: Hello?

Grim: Can I assassinate the Chancellor on the grounds of patient safety and wellbeing?

Epi: uhhh idk, I'll have to ask Helix.

...

Epi: Helix says yes.

Grim: Excellent.

-----

Back on Coruscant:

Palpatine: Why do I hear boss music?

[moxie-girl]

212th Mando'a name hcs!!

I've got a lot of names already figured out, so rn it's mostly a matter of organizing the ones I have and then working on the ones I don't...

same as all the others, color coding from green -> red matches how close the name is to a canon Mando'a word:

(also yes i know Helix is technically fanon but I hadddd to include him)

[your-humble-host]

I forget sometimes that Star Wars fanfiction just makes up characters like especially for clone medics. Like Helix is present in like majority of people's 212th battalion fics that need a medic but he's only ever present in fanfiction. Someone just made him up. And we all rolled with it. The little shit might as well be canon with how many people know him.

[themonopolyhat]

shoulder the sky: the Doll au

another AU spawned in the chat with @shootingstarpilot, cleaned up and preserved for posterity.

featuring helix (originally belonging to @swmoddy) and el pilot's own needle and stitch. this trio has me in a chokehold at all times. <3

what follows is 4100+ words of family by way of magical realism. in which i am nice to helix, for once!

behold:

Envision if you will a world not like ours, where everyone has the same face and new people are not born—they begin as small, plain Dolls made of cloth and seeds and yarn.

It goes like this: a person suddenly Receives a Doll. Everyone knows what they look like, even if they're not all totally identical when they arrive. The arrival of a Doll is always without warning, and nobody knows exactly how it happens.

One day, you don't have a Doll. The next, you do. Some people get two or three at a time. Some go for years without ever being a Recipient.

It's the Recipient's task to carry the Doll around with them, keep it safe, talk to it, show it new things, clean and mend it if necessary. Most people come to love their Doll. They imagine the sort of person their Doll might be.

Eventually, with no set timeline, most Dolls begin to Breathe—that is, the tiny cloth Doll is replaced by a living grown person. Many Recipients keep in contact with their Breathers long afterward, because it's something like a parental/sibling relationship, after all.

(It's said that a neglected Doll can die. Sometimes a Doll arrives damaged, or incomplete, and the Recipient has to figure out how to help as best they can. If a Doll is destroyed, it's a cause for genuine mourning—that was a new potential person, and the Recipient will never get to meet them now.)

oOoOo

Helix has been Breathing for ten years and working as a doctor for six, and he's never Received a Doll.

Until one day he does.

He is too stunned to immediately process this. He picks up the recognizable Doll Pouch from its place on his floor, feels it gently. There's a Doll inside, he can tell.

A Doll. He has a Doll.

He is not ready to have a Doll. But he's not about to let this one die, so. He supposes he'd better get his shit together.

He carefully undoes the cord and opens the Pouch. The Doll slides out with a gentle shake-shake-shake.

He cups it in his hand. It's smaller than he expected, though he's of course seen many Dolls before, tucked in others' hands and pockets and hats. It's floppy-limbed and has a squishy, seed-filled belly.

There's something not quite right about it, though. Helix immediately notices.

Two different fabrics. The body is one color, and the head is another color. Neat stitches connect the pieces together, completely purposeful, and the proportions are prefect. But the Doll has had its head entirely replaced at some point before arrival.

Helix touches the squishy belly and considers the blank cloth face. “What happened to you?” he wonders aloud, softly. “Did the celestial Doll factory hurt you and have to fix it before they kicked you down here? That's kind of a shit start.” The Doll is silent. “Well. We'll see if we can't do better from now on.”

oOoOo

On his way to work the next morning, Helix stops for two things: a coffee, per usual, and a waterproof protective case for the Doll. It's small enough to ride around in his pocket, he just figures the fewer bodily fluids it gets splashed with, the less he'll have to clean it.

Helix feels awkward as hell talking to the Doll. He feels a little bad not talking to it, though, even if it isn't really listening yet. (Or is it? Nobody recalls their time as a Doll, but everybody ends up influenced in some way by that time, all the same.)

“I work at the hospital,” he tells it as he carefully tucks it into its new case. “I'm a doctor. I specialize in critical care, so I'm usually in the ED or ICU. Hope you're okay with blood and weird smells.”

The Doll offers no opinion. It seems comfortable in its case, at least. Helix tucks it into his pocket and pats the new lump. He'll have to get used to this.

By the end of the first day, everyone in the hospital knows Helix has a Doll.

By the end of the first week, Helix talks to his Doll more than he talks to anyone Breathing.

The Doll goes everywhere with him.

He carries it around the apartment, and soon there are usual spots where he sets it so it can observe (so to speak) what he's up to.

It sits by the knife block when he's in the kitchen. Helix has Opinions on coffee, curry, and noodles, which are the only three food groups he can prepare for himself. Otherwise it's takeout.

He sets it on his nightstand at bedtime. A habit quickly forms—he touches the Doll's mismatched head, just a quick brush of fingers over the cloth, and tells it to have sweet dreams. (The first time he realizes he's been saying “Sweet dreams, kiddo,” he has to reevaluate himself for a few minutes afterward.)

When he's watching TV, the Doll sits with him. When he goes for a run, it's secure in his pocket. When he goes to the store, to the bank, to the park, to meet friends, it's with him, always small and still and perfectly receptive to anything Helix has to tell it.

It witnesses him at his best. At his worst.

He accidentally drops it in the trash one morning without realizing, and is frantic for a solid hour until he unearths it. “I'm so sorry,” he tells it over and over while he gently washes it with soap and water. “I'm so sorry. I would be so sorry if you were gone.”

He has to admit, sooner rather than later, that he loves having a Doll. He loves this Doll. He can't wait for it to Breathe, and say something back to him.

oOoOo

And then. Some weeks later. Maybe a month and a half.

Another Doll arrives.

The new Pouch sits on the floor, very close to where the first had been.

Helix stares at it, dumbfounded. He takes his first Doll out of his pocket and eyes it suspiciously. “I don't suppose you know anything about this?”

The Doll says nothing, of course.

Helix keeps it in hand and scoops the new Pouch up, setting both on the counter and turning on the overhead light to get a good look at the newcomer. Little gods, he thinks, ten years without a single Doll and now he's got two. It's not usual to get two staggered like this, he doesn't think.

He unties the cord and tips the Pouch.

A few loose seeds spill out.

Helix blinks. Oh, shit. That's Doll stuffing. Not supposed to be outside of the Doll.

“Damn, are you hurt, too?” he murmurs, reaching in to carefully extract the Doll. A couple more seeds fall from the Pouch.

It's immediately apparent that yes, this one is hurt. More than that, it's... lopsided. The proportions aren't quite right, and the pieces don't match well. There are a couple of places where the seams aren't snug, and the Doll is slowly bleeding seeds when it's moved in certain ways.

Shit. Shit.

Helix very, very carefully gathers the loose seeds into a pile and addresses the Dolls in turn. “Hang tight, newbie. You, watch your brother. I'm going to have to give him some grafts.”

Helix doesn't have any fabric that remotely matches the new Doll, so he cuts up a clean pillowcase, digs out a suture kit that snuck home with him at some point, and gets to work. Some of the seams just need reinforcement, but others need patched with the pillowcase fabric. The seeds are tucked carefully back into the Doll's body before it's closed up.

The result is... well. Functional, more than it's aesthetic. Helix isn't crafty. The grafts—the patches are neat and sturdy but hardly symmetrical.

Helix sets his forceps down and nudges the two Dolls together, looking at them wearily. “At least you're both a little mismatched now, huh?” he says, smiling crookedly. “And everybody's in one piece. That's progress.”

He hesitates, touches the new Doll more gently, aware that he's mostly handled it in a utilitarian fashion. “Welcome home, I guess is the thing to say. Sorry you had a bumpy start. You'll be okay now. Your brother apparently lost his entire head at some point, but the new one is doing just fine.”

oOoOo

Helix starts to fill Doll Two in on the things Doll One has learned, all the while chiding Doll One for imagined impatience. “I know you know this, but he's new, he doesn't know it, and you don't have a mouth yet to pass it on. So cool your little rag feet.”

They ride around in Helix's pockets, but he sits them together whenever possible, because it seems right. They prop up against each other so naturally.

Doll Two goes missing one day during a double shift at work, and by the time it turns up in the on-call room Helix napped in, he's an absolute mess. He's had to forcibly stop himself from squishing Doll One too much, like a stress toy.

He takes both Dolls into a bathroom and locks himself in a stall and hugs them both to his chest, biting his lip and swallowing the urge to sob. “I am terrible at this but please don't disappear on me, okay?” he whispers finally.

Helix can't remember what he did with his time before he had his Dolls. He wasn't bored, really, or lonely. But his days seems more full, now. Bright and anticipatory in a way he's never experienced before.

He wants his Dolls to Breathe. He wants them to live.

He can't wait to meet them.

oOoOo

So of course, the first one to Breathe does so while Helix is sound asleep.

He wakes up a little past midnight. Squints at the clock, then reflexively checks the Dolls.

There's only one sitting in the usual spot. Doll Two, slumped over a little without its companion.

Doll One is nowhere to be seen.

Helix is out of bed in a second, flipping the light, squinting and swearing and checking under the bed, inside the bedclothes, what if it fell—

He smells coffee.

It's strong, and strange enough to catch his attention. Did he turn the pot on and forget...?

Scowling, he picks up Doll Two and hurries out to the kitchen. He will keep looking for the other once he's sure he isn't burning his apartment down overnight.

A person stands at the coffee pot, examining a mug. He turns to look at Helix, a bright smile breaking into place the moment they make eye contact. “Hello,” he chirps. “I borrowed your phone to learn how to make coffee. Do you want some? I'm Needle, by the way. And you're Helix.”

Helix is, on some level, aware that he is standing like a complete feeb with his boxers slung low and his mouth hanging open in shock. The person in his kitchen is wearing a towel knotted around his waist and nothing else. He looks like Helix, of course. Superficially. His hair is different. He has no scars. And that smile is several degrees brighter than anything Helix has ever produced.

Doll One is Breathing. He's alive. His name is Needle, and he's making coffee at one in the morning.

Helix swallows his first three responses. "Hey. Yeah. Are you feeling okay? Everything, uh. Go okay with. Everything?"

Doll One—Needle, he's Needle—snorts. "I feel fine. Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?"

Helix rolls his eyes and gets his feet moving, padding the rest of the way in. "I am a doctor, thanks. I'm just surprised. When I saw you last, you were a sack of seeds on my bedside table."

Needle's smile goes lopsided. Fuck if it isn't charming. "Yeah. But I'm here now." He looks down at the remaining Doll in Helix's hand. "I hope he Breathes soon, too."

Helix inhales and refuses to let any sort of mist creep over his eyes. "Yeah. Me too."

The coffee pot bubbles. They're quiet a moment.

"Welcome to being alive, Needle," Helix tells him finally, reaching out to set a hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently. “I'm glad you're here. Really glad."

Needle grins and hugs him tight in return. "Couldn't have done it without you, I bet."

oOoOo

Helix dresses Needle in some of his own clothes—they're the same size, at least—and sits them down with the coffees. And they talk. Needle is... brilliant. Breathtaking. Annoying, and charming, and sweet.

Helix would have avoided him, probably, if they'd met under other circumstances. Unfortunately, he loves him already.

"You were so much more tolerable as a Doll," he growls into his mug after yet another terrible pun.

Needle just laughs, unoffended. "Too late to go back now, boss. You missed your chance."

"I should have gagged your little Doll face as a hint."

"You could always give it a shot with the little one?" Needle smiles at Doll Two, which remains quietly slouched on the tabletop where Helix set it. "Maybe he'll be even worse."

Helix picks up Doll Two and addresses its little blank face solemnly. "Do not listen to a single word your brother says. He's a terrible influence."

“Slander."

"I blame his mismatched head."

“Slander."

There's so much to do, but first: sleep. Helix staggers back to bed, and Needle crashes on the sofa. Doll Two gets placed back on the nightstand.

oOoOo

There are all kinds of programs set up to get new Breathers established. There are classes to get them oriented, case workers to get them housed and employed, funds to support them while they get situated. Helix takes Needle to a local center to get started, and together they read the literature and watch a short video with a couple of other new Breathers.

Afterward, armed with a thick folder and a schedule for the next few weeks, Needle asks if they can go get lunch together. Helix tries not to let his shattering relief show—he hasn't figured out how he'll say goodbye now that his Doll (his first Doll) is moving out and on with his new life.

"So Helix," Needle says once they've gotten their food and tucked in, "there's a couple of flyers in here about getting too attached to your Recipient, or your Recipient being too attached to you. What do you think 'too attached' means?"

Helix blinks. "I'd guess it probably means in the bad way. Like if you were afraid to be away from me, or if I was trying to force you to stay. You know, instead of letting you be your own person." He smiles a little, squashing the sadness. "You're not a Doll anymore. You have your own life now."

“Okay, that's kind of what I thought. But you're not creepy, and I don't feel like I can't do things on my own. I definitely can."

Helix pats his shoulder, proud despite everything. "I believe you. You'll be amazing, provided somebody doesn't sew your mouth shut and kill that budding career at the auction house."

“Rude." Needle steals fries from his plate in retaliation. "I was gonna say, I already know some things for sure. You're a doctor, so you make good money, yeah?"

“True."

“And you could afford a way bigger place if you wanted, right?"

“Yes? But I don't need anything bigger, I'm happy with the space as it is..."

“What if I wanted to stay?"

oOoOo

Which is how Helix ends up browsing for a house before the day is out. A house with three rooms, because as Needle puts it, a spare room is always practical.

(Neither of them mentions Doll Two or implies a single thing. It's just a spare room. Practical.)

The case worker insists on talking to Helix and Needle, once Needle makes the plan known to her. She interviews them separately and together. Helix wonders whether she's more or less mollified when he tells her that Needle is the most annoying person he's ever met—and whether it reassures her that Needle just laughs at him and hugs him, cooing about grumpy sleep deprived Recipients.

In the end, a case worker can't actually stop a Breather from doing what they like, so the plan goes forward. They find a house fast. Buy it without a hitch. The move is quick and aggravating, as moves are.

Needle is full of plans for decorating and enhancing and having friends over, when he makes some. "And," he announces with relish as he breezes out their brand new front door, "I think I want to be a doctor, too. Write me a good reference letter!"

oOoOo

Life goes on. Helix has one Doll in his pocket now. Doll Two goes everywhere with him, still. He talks to it, pats its little head and body gently, keeps it close. It sits with him and Needle when they eat together, watch TV together, look over Needle's schoolwork together. Needle is going to be a brilliant doctor, Helix can already tell.

They fight. They make up. Helix apologizes, sometimes with words and sometimes without. He privately tells Doll Two he's sorry if he makes it nervous about Breathing.

"I suck with people sometimes," he informs it. "Turns out it's easier with a Doll. But you should Breathe whenever you're ready, okay? Take a lesson from your brother and don't let me get away with being a jackass."

oOoOo

So it goes. Life goes on. Then comes the day when Helix is getting dressed to go to the gym, and he turns around to grab Doll Two and it isn't where he left it on the nightstand. Instead there's a person sitting on the edge of his bed, bare and new and staring at him with huge eyes.

Helix does not yelp. That would be undignified.

(He might have jumped a little.)

"Shit. Sorry. Good fucking gods, you need a bell. ... Sorry. Hi."

The new Breather says nothing, just watches him carefully. Helix feels terribly inadequate and thinks of yelling for Needle—but no. No, he carried his second Doll for so long, he wants to properly meet the new person. He can do this.

"Sorry," he says again, smiling a little and easing down to sit on the bed too. "Let's start over. I'm Helix. Are you feeling okay?" He recalls the Doll's weak seams and bleeding seeds, the patches he'd applied on their first night together. "Does anything hurt?"

The new person frowns, visibly considering. He looks down at himself. "Nothing hurts," he decides. His fingers flex slowly. "I was a Doll, before now."

"You were."

"I'm not anymore."

"You're not." Helix has no idea where he came from, this serious and quiet person who's spent most of his existence in proximity to Needle, or at least the Doll that would become Needle. “Why don't we get you some clothes and something to eat, huh? Got your name figured out yet? It's all right if you're still thinking about it, you're new."

The new Breather nods silently and doesn't offer a name. That's all right. Helix figures he might be overwhelmed. He digs out clothes and offers them. "We can take you shopping for your own things, but these should fit for now. —Oh, if you figure out you're a girl or something, just let us know."

That gets him another thoughtful frown. It isn't until the newbie is dressed that he speaks again. “I'm not a girl," he says. "I'm Stitch. And I don't feel okay."

The doctor in Helix leaps to the fore, which is handy because it helps tamp down an immediate burst of panic. "Thank you for telling me, Stitch," he hears himself answer levelly. "Can you tell me more about what doesn't feel okay to you?"

Stitch hugs himself, picking at the edges of his sleeves. He's quiet for a long, long minute.

“Everything is too much," he says finally, his expression unhappy. "It feels too loud. Too big. Like I'm going to unravel and not Breathe anymore."

"Sounds like you're anxious, at the very least. Let me check some things, okay? I'm a doctor."

“Okay, Helix."

It's the work of minutes to rustle up his stethoscope and take Stitch's vitals. His pulse is quick but strong, and his lungs sound fine. His pupils are responsive and even. Reflexes are good.

“You feel overwhelmed? Is that a good word for it?" Helix asks quietly.

Stitch nods, hugging himself again and tugging at his borrowed sleeve cuffs.

"Can you think of anything that might help you feel less overwhelmed? Do you want to be alone for a little while so you can process...?"

Stitch shudders and shakes his head firmly.

“Okay. No to being alone. Maybe music?" Also a no. "We could sit quietly a while. Do you want a hug?"

That gets him a pause. Stitch meets his eyes, looking lost. "I wish I was a Doll again," he says. “That's how it feels. Like I want to be a Doll in someone's pocket."

Helix doesn't think twice about that, he'll figure out later what it means. "Well, here, let's stick you in bed under the covers a while, you can pretend you're in a pocket and we'll see if that helps."

Stitch has no objections, though his frown doesn't abate as Helix tucks him in, pulling a blanket up around his head and shoulders. "Give it a few minutes and see if you feel better, okay?" Helix pats Stitch's leg through the blankets. "I'm going to message your br—Needle. I'm going to ask Needle to bring a glass of water and some cereal for you. You don't have to meet him until you're ready. Sound okay?"

"Okay Helix."

And it goes like this: ur bro is Breathing. DO NOT COME RUNNING IN HERE. he's overwhelmed + in my bed for now. bring water + cereal to door, thx

He sends it. There is a muffled thump from elsewhere in the house. A return message arrives in seconds: OH MY GODS OH MY GODS IS HE CUTE WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM IS HE OKAY I'LL GET THE CEREAL BOSS NO PROBLEM WHAT'S HIS NAME DOES HE KNOW I'M HERE TOO

And then, immediately after: vitals?

Good fucking gods. Helix loves that idiot.

As promised, Needle knocks very softly a minute later and passes the water and dry cereal in. Helix clocks the anxious look on his face and is glad he asked Stitch about more company in the interim. "He says you can come in, but," and Helix gives him a stern look, "you have to be quiet. Gentle, okay? He's new and not as excited about it as you were."

Needle nods vigorously and mimes zipping his lips shut.

(It's not that Helix doesn't trust Needle to be kind. Needle is incredibly kind. He's just also got enough energy to launch a rocket into orbit.)

"Stitch," Helix says, sitting back down by the blanket lump's legs, "Needle brought you some water and food. Can you sit up and drink a little bit, at least?"

Stitch stirs. Peers out of the blankets. "I have to?"

“I guess not, but I recommend it," Helix tells him easily. "Dehydration doesn't help with anything."

Stitch considers this. "Okay Helix." He shuffles in place, sits up. Takes the water and carefully swallows some of it down. His eyes find Needle, who's sat down at the foot of the bed and is vibrating in place, from the looks of things.

"Hello," Stitch says. "I'm Stitch."

Helix's heart twists a little at the sheer sweetness in Needle's answering grin. "Hi, Stitch. I'm Needle. I'm sort of your big brother—Helix carried my Doll around, too."

"Oh." Stitch looks between them a moment. "You were both waiting for me?" Off their twin affirmatives, he bites the inside of his lip and picks at the blankets. “Was it hard to start Breathing, Needle?"

"No," Needle replies promptly, smiling, "but Helix says I have the attention span of a cabbage, so I probably just didn't pay enough attention to anything long enough. It is a really big thing to get used to, isn't it?"

Stitch nods mutely.

"You want to go back in the blankets?"

Another nod.

“You want company? I can keep secrets, and I'll tell you all of the best ways to get Helix to swear. It's funny."

Helix opens his mouth to interject and snaps it shut again when Stitch says, "Okay."

Which is how he ends up sitting quietly, reading, while Needle and Stitch huddle under the blankets and are quiet and whispery by turns. It's fine. He's very, very proud of Needle. He'll just have to make an effort to undo all of the terrible ideas he's putting in Stitch's head.

[enterprisecatsblog]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody & Original Clone Trooper Medic Helix Characters: Original Clone Trooper Medic Helix (Star Wars), CC-2224 | Cody, Obi-Wan Kenobi Additional Tags: Angst, Heavy Angst, Clone Trooper Inhibitor Chips (Star Wars), And their implications, Ficlet, Brotherly Love, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Disaster, mentioned slavery, no plot just vibes, Cody being the big brother, Ambiguous/Open Ending Series: Part 2 of The way we’re falling Summary:

“Sir, I need you inside the scanner for this exercise to work,” Helix says with a weary sigh the third time Commander jumps out to furiously type a text message on his comm.

 Cody and Obi-Wan inform Helix about the existence of inhibitor chips.

[weirdnotal]

More 212th memes cause why not

(Msy contain oc's)

[ketchup-monthly]

just a little something i did with the 212th and Rex using my lesbian!au clone designs

pic with identifiers under the cut!

[kartaylirnaak]

Might I be able to ask about Match the 212th ARC. Why the name? Do they like to match things? Or is it like matchstick and fire is their friend?

You most certainly can! I will very happily ramble on about him.

Match is my 212th ARC Trooper OC. He's a Sergeant and is in an ARC pair with Wooley, who is also an ARC in this AU. Match is quiet, reserved, and doesn't same much, if at all. There's a quiet, shuttered sadness to him and he can be a little intense sometimes. He cares and worries deeply but isn't always the best at expressing it. Match is an expert in wilderness survival, especially jungle survival, for Reasons (I put him through The Horrors). He's fairly lean and wiry for a clone and, when fighting, has a viciousness and brutality to him, along with a keen eye, sharp intelligence, and heightened situational awareness. But he wasn't always this way.

I have no idea where the name came from. It just sort of morphed out of thin air when I started coming up with him. Initially, I wasn't that keen on the name but it kind of stuck and now he's Match. I haven't come up with any in-universe reasoning behind his name yet but I have come up with plenty more backstory and information about him. I was organising my OC's in a spreadsheet to try and keep track of all of them and decided to open a new doc to collate my thoughts about Match. It wasn't going to be much, just a little more than what I could fit into a spreadsheet.

16k+ words later

I now have a lot more backstory and detail about Match and I'm still nowhere even close to finished. It also evolved from ramblings into actual chunks of fic. I'd love to be able to write a whole fic and more about him but that's be a mammoth undertaking that I'm not sure I'll ever manage. So now I have all these sections of fic about him that I wish I could share but there's no context to them so they don't make a great deal of sense in isolation.

Below the cut is the condensed version of Match's backstory, which is still over 2.2k words 😂 It's very rough so there's definitely some clunky writing in there.

I've also included a section of fic I wrote about Match's backstory, where I introduce a different OC, mention another, and the 212th's fandom CMO (Helix) also makes an appearance.

Match's backstory

Match starts off as a shiny in the 212th fairly early on in the war. He’s very loud, brash, cocky, arrogant and egotistical. Thinks he’s top shit and knows everything. He’s constantly getting disciplined and being dressed down by his CO’s for doing stupid shit that endangers his brothers, but it never seems to get through to him. During a battle, his squad is ambushed by droids and he and the commando droid he’s fighting are thrown off the path and down a cliff by an explosion. Match is badly injured but manages to survive and shoot the commando droid, who ended up wedged in a tree. He collapses and is then stunned and captured by Trandoshans, has his wounds perfunctorily treated while he’s out, and wakes up in a cage on a ship, dressed in civies, and with a bunch of other caged natborns. They’re all dumped out onto a beach near a jungle and then shot at, so Match and the natborns that survive all bolt for the jungle. (If this sounds like that episode from TCW, yes that’s where I pinched it from). Match then has to survive in the jungle all by himself while being hunted by the Trandoshans for sport. It’s brutal and terrifying and he has to do some truly fucked up things in order to survive. It’s a constant fight for survival, everything is life or death, and he’s constantly being hunted by the Trandoshans or creatures in the jungle. Match is forced to adapt in order to survive and stay alive. The experience changes him and he becomes quiet and withdrawn, not talking for days at a time. He’s completely alone and isolated and he knows he’s never going to be found. Match survives for over a year and a half in the jungle. He crafts his own weapons, armour, camouflage, supplies, gear, shelters, traps, and everything else he needs to survive. 

The jungle forges him into something new. 

Something different. 

Over a year and a half after Match was captured, he’s watching the latest batch of natborns be dumped out onto the beach and spots that one of them is different, likely a Jedi. They drop down silently in front of him a day later and as very little gets the drop on Match in the jungle these days, he nearly puts a knife and axe through them. Turns out the Jedi is the 212th’s padawan (Jedi OC), who joined the 212th after Match was captured. Something something “will of the Force”, picture a bunch of Commanders rolling their eyes at their General’s here. Bit clichéd but let's be real, it’s not as bad as some of the nonsense that happened in TCW. Anyway, Match now has a baby Jedi. Accidental ad’ika acquisition has been foisted upon him. He teaches them how to survive in the jungle and looks after them, fiercely protecting them against everything. The baby Jedi looks after Match, helping with jungle survival but also helping him slowly remember a little of what it’s like to be around others again. He has someone to talk to now and he relearns, in a way, how to talk again (rocks don’t talk back to you). He has to learn to deal with touch and human interaction again, for when they have to hand things to each other or help each other through the forest or huddle for warmth when the wind picks up and the storms rage and the temperature drops. This lasts for about a month to six weeks until they enact the padawans' plan to escape. There’s a bit of angst around that because Match knows he’ll never be found but the baby Jedi keeps going on about hope and plans, which is all just futile to Match. They have a bit of a fight about it but reconcile and then go and steal the transponder and some electronics from the next Trandoshan ship that arrives. The padawan gets a message out to the 212th, who turn up and rescue them. Match gets shot protecting the baby Jedi during the rescue and nearly dies. 

He wakes up in the medbay on the Negotiator, having had surgery and spent over a week in bacta. He’s survived but his body and mind are fucked. He could never find enough food in the jungle so he’s skin and bone for a clone. The results from all the tests the medics ran on him are all over the shop. He’s covered in scars, has a bunch of old injuries that didn’t heal properly, and picked up all kinds of mystery jungle diseases and parasites. Match is also deeply traumatised from everything he’s been through. The jungle never leaves him and it’s always there in his mind. He still thinks in terms of relating everything to the jungle and has to actively remind himself that he’s not there anymore. 

But the jungle is always there. 

Waiting. 

There aren’t many clones left who remember Match from before he was captured. When Cody visits him in the medbay, Match apologises for how he behaved before and asks to be punished, to which Cody’s response is ‘absolutely the fuck not’. While Match is deeply fucked up, he’s still functional, so he has a long recovery as he heals and gets back into shape. He’s never able to fully return to the baseline body mass of a CT and he stays wiry and lean for a clone. The jungle also shaped him into a brutal fighter. He’s now fast, ruthless, and lethal, easily capable of putting down most clones quick and hard, even while recovering. He struggles to adjust though, still stuck in the mindset of the jungle where everything is a fight for survival. There is no room for practice or training in the jungle. There is only life or death. It causes some problems initially but Match was put in Waxer’s platoon for a reason (he often gets the tough cases) and everyone tries to help him adjust as best they can.

Match has changed. The arrogant little shit of a shiny from before is gone. Replaced by a quiet, reserved, and watchful clone who doesn’t say a great deal and often falls back on protocol because he doesn’t know what to do in social situations anymore. He’s a highly effective and efficient trooper now but outside of that, he struggles with a multitude of issues, including hypervigilance, dissociation, overtraining, and nightmares. He’s also filled with an immense amount of shame and guilt at how he acted and behaved as a shiny before he was captured. Match doesn’t paint his armour for quite a while because he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. That is until Boil basically shoves a can of armour paint at him and makes him turn up to an armour painting session. 

Match ends up having to be an acting Sergeant in the field during a battle because two squads both lose half of their members and he’s the oldest left and he has four shocked and injured vod’ika staring up at him. So he cobbles them together, gets them through the battle, makes his report on what happened to Waxer, and then goes to make sure they’re all as ok as possible and looks after them. It’s only when they won’t leave him alone that he realises he’s accidentally acquired vod’ika. He ends up being promoted straight to Sergeant of his cobbled together squad because they worked quite well together and bonded as a group, plus Match performed well under fire. Match doesn’t think he deserves it because he just did what he always did in the jungle. Survived. But the vod’ika keep looking at him like he’s hung the stars and there is no way in hell he’s behaving like he used to, so he takes on the responsibility and teaches them what he knows. 

Cody’s been keeping an eye on all of this and has been conveniently dropping by with various other experienced clones when Match is doing his own training. Match can last the longest out of the standard CT’s when sparring with commanders, ARCs, or commanders, like Cody, Wooley or Gregor. This is how Match meets Wooley, who will end up being his future ARC partner, even if Match doesn’t know it yet. He likes Wooley and has a healthy respect for him and his skills, even if he does think he’s too bright and cheery and talks too much. 

You can’t talk in the jungle. 

They’ll hear you. 

Match ends up having to be an acting Lieutenant during a later campaign when Waxer is injured and Match is the only Sergeant left because the rest are gone or too badly injured. At the time, Match does what he has to do. During a campaign or battle, the same mindset from the jungle returns. He does what he has to do to survive, just now it’s mixed with doing what he has to in order to keep as many other clones alive as well. Match has now somehow acquired more vod’ika but he absolutely does not want to be a Lieutenant. He still doesn’t think he deserves to be a Sergeant, let alone a Lieutenant. There isn’t a space for him to be promoted to anyway once Waxer recovers. Cody has been keeping an eye on all of this and decides now is the time to send Match to ARC training. Match has a massive internal crisis about this because he thinks he definitely does not deserve the honour of even being considered for ARC training, let alone being an actual ARC. Cody puts Match through his own preparation training for ARC training so Match spends his evenings being thrown around the mats by the Commander and Wooley, learning as much as he can, and getting to know both Cody and Wooley better. He still doesn’t think he deserves to be in this position but he doesn’t talk about it because that would involve Talking To People. Rocks never talked to him in the jungle. Both Cody and Wooley clock this and try to get through to Match that he does deserve this. Match still doesn’t entirely believe it but he can understand their more rational arguments that he now has the skills, ability, and potential to be an ARC. 

Seventeen is inspecting all of the ARC candidates who are lined up in the training room at the start of this round of ARC training. He stops in front of Match, who internally is freaking the fuck out, but outwardly does not even fucking blink. Match is very good at staying completely still now, especially in the presence of a threat. The jungle beat that lesson into him. Seventeen just looks at him before stating, “You saved the little Commander” (referring to the 212th’s padawan). Match, who is looking straight ahead with a dead stare, having reverted back to survival coping mechanisms that he developed to survive on the island, answers with an automatic “Yes, Sir.” Seventeen gives him a look, grunts, gives Match the tiniest of nods, and moves on, which for Seventeen is high praise. All the other ARC candidates in this round of ARC training are internally freaking out and wondering who the hell this vod is that already has Seventeen’s approval. Match just wants to be left alone and avoid any kind of attention and make it through ARC training. 

Match tops almost all of the categories in this round of ARC training and is top 3 or 5 in the rest. He sets a new record in jungle survival and is equal second of all time in wilderness survival. His main competition during training is a vod named Jesse from the 501st, who is far too friendly (idk what the timelines are doing at this point so we’re just rolling with it). At least the giant Republic cog tattooed on his head would help him camouflage in the jungle a little. 

The jungle is always there. 

Waiting. 

Match lasts the longest in their final no holds barred hand to hand spar assessment against Seventeen and is one of the few that doesn’t technically lose because the Alpha Medic supervising the spars (which are basically just fights) calls an end to it because Match refuses to stop. He must survive. Match joins Jesse and another vod in the medbay later who also had their fights stopped before they were turned into paste. Jesse was quite pleased with himself, even as he bemoaned the reception he was going to get from someone called Kix, who is apparently going to kick his ass even worse. The other vod is completely out cold. Match paints his kama in a camo pattern similar to the camo pattern on the ARFs armour in the 212th, with only the barest hint of gold paint lightly brushed through it. It’ll help blend into dappled light. The rest of his armour might be too damn bright but at least some of his legs will be camouflaged.  

Match and Wooley work as an ARC pair as part of the 212th and Ghost Company. They go where they’re needed and complement each other well. They’re also both part of the specialised squad that accompanies the 212th’s padawan on missions. There’s a pool of troopers in Ghost Company with various specialisations that are drawn on depending on the needs of the mission. This will pretty much always involve Match and Wooley because wherever their padawan goes, they go. The General has the Commander and their padawan has at least one ARC. They’re all very serious about keeping their jetii alive, Match especially so about keeping the baby Jedi alive. That’s been with him ever since the jungle and will never leave. 

Just like the jungle. 

It is always there. 

—

Section of fic about Match Context: This is after Match has been rescued and is recovering in the medbay of the Negotiator.

Waking is easier this time. 

Match comes to a slow awareness of his surroundings. The white walls and bright lights and beeping machines are still there. The mask on his face is gone, replaced by tubes that fill his nose and do not feel welcome at all. Match think’s he’d prefer the mask back. He gingerly shifts his jaw and it immediately cracks, making his eye twitch and drawing out a pained grunt. His side twinges at the noise but the slicing pain from before doesn’t return. He carefully shifts slightly and is relieved to find that it doesn’t feel like he’s being stabbed again. Instead, there’s a deep penetrating ache in his shoulder, thigh, and ribs. The rest of his body feels like one big bruise. Deciding to risk a little more movement, Match turns his head to the side to confirm that, yes, there are machines next to him. There’s also the door along with a wall with a window that gives a view out into what looks like a larger medbay.

Why is he in a room by himself?

Turning his head to the other side reveals more machines, cupboards, and a chair for some reason. Match is pondering the existence of the chair when a vod with eye searingly bright blue hair and a splash of patterns on the side of his face pokes his head around the door.

“Eeeyyyyy, he’s awake!”

Yes?

The vod hollers out to the medbay at large with a string of words and letters that make absolutely no sense to Match and then bounces over to him.

“How you doin’ bud? I’m Fluid, but everyone calls me Flu because they all think they’re sooooooo funny giving a medic the name of something we can’t catch. Fancy heightened genetically engineered immune systems and all that.”

This vod is far too loud, in every sense of the word.

“But you managed to pick up some very interesting mystery jungle flu down there. That produced some wild results in the battery of tests we had to run, let me tell you.”

The jungle gave Match a lot of things. 

It took away even more.

The vod keeps nattering away as he looks at a datapad and does things with the machines and rifles around in the cupboards like he’s trying to make every noise imaginable.

“So on a scale of being ripped apart by our friendly neighbourhood Force wielding Sith gremlin, to being thrown around the mats by the Commander for his sadistic pleasure, to stubbing your toe on that little lip of the door on the last training room that really shouldn’t be there because everything’s supposed to be standardised, what’s our pain like today?

What the fuck is a Sith gremlin?

“Are we gonna have to use numbers? Numbers are so boring. Utterly useless too, seeing as they don’t accurately convey pain and, despite us all being clones and all, we definitely process pain differently. But you try telling the longnecks that and just watch them get all pissy. That’s a recipe for being recon’d at the very least so let's keep that between you and me, pal.”

The loud, blue haired vod is looking at him expectantly so Match guesses this is where he’s supposed to respond.

“What’s a—”

His voice gives out, cracking into a rough croak and a hacking cough that makes his ribs really fucking hurt.

“Oop, one sec, here ya go, that should help.”

The straw from a hydro pack is brandished in his face and Match sucks down his first gulp of water that hasn’t come from somewhere dubious in the jungle.

It tastes plastic.

“Alrighty, howzat then? Bit better, yeah?”

“Thanks,” Match manages to croak out. Fuck, his voice sounds and feels rough. Flu seems to be of the same opinion and decides to make it known.

“Damn vod, that is some heavy gravel you’ve been garglin’. Don’t worry ‘bout talking too much at the moment, your voice is in about the same state as the rest of you, which is to say, pretty damn beat up.”

This vod has said more words in the past few minutes than Match has said in over a year and a half. 

Repeatedly honed instincts mean Match doesn’t miss the movement across the window and his eyes track a familiar clone as they hand a datapad off to another medic and then walk through the door. 

This is someone he remembers from before. And someone who remembers him.

“Flu, stop terrorising him.”

“Now, Sir, would I ever do something like that?” Flu answers, clutching at his chest and somehow managing to be even more dramatic. 

A deeply unimpressed look is all Flu gets in return.

Match would be more confused at whatever is going on but right now he’s more occupied with looking at Helix in trepidation. He can’t run from a threat. Isn’t even sure how well he can move, and there’s only one way out of this room.

“Go be a menace elsewhere.”

“But at least I’m your favourite menace,” Flu replies, as he cheerfully slaps the datapad against Helix’s chest.

“No, that’s Pinch.”

A scandalised gasp.

“Wounded. Deeply wounded, Sir. So deeply and fatally wounded. I am in the death throes and seeing the light.”

“No dying in my medbay.”

Flu leaves with an exuberant “Yessir” flung over his shoulder as the door closes on his exit and finally brings about some peace and quiet.

[rebecca-lotto]

i may not have a clue on what helix looks like but i got vibes

yes he does qualify for a membership to the obi wan kenobi hater club™ , but he's also one of the biggest codywan shippers

the medics all have a group chat where helix regularly updates everyone on the latest drama between cody & obi wan

he learnt through trial and error that 1 : Obi wan doesn't bust out of the medbay when cody's there , and 2, watching those 2 argue like an old married couple is excellent entertainment and the cody blackmail material is helpful too.

nobody knows what this bitch's natural hair color is ; when you first meet him on the job he's blonde like rex , but a few months later on shore leave his hair is now a florescent pink .

many have tried to mind trick the answer out of him , they all failed. this has lead to rumors about him being force sensitive.

(plo koon could weasel a straight answer out of helix, provided he uses his disappointed dad ™ voice while doing the trick)

helix , being the biggest gossip of the medics find that rumor hilarious.